Database Develop

What are the Cons of rooting your phone?

I read the wiki but it only tells you "Why you should" root your phone. Obviously Google removed root from the latest firmware for a reason. If its for security reasons, how can you be "safe" with a rooted phone? Can you still download paid apps from the App store with a rooted phone? How well does the Apps on the SD card work? The main reason I would want to root my phone is for the SD card app feature. The G1 space sucks ass and its constantly telling me I am low on space.

When you root your phone, it automatically installs an app called "SuperUser" (assuming you're using one of JesusFreke's builds). SuperUser allows you to control which applications have root privileges.
Also, Google probably removed root because of stuff like the fact that it enables you to copy protected apps and the like... and even if they didn't know at the time, they probably knew that it would happen

Superuser protects your phone by allowing programs you give permission to that use root. I can still see paid apps in the Market (I haven't bought any yet, but I will). I didn't move my apps onto my SD card because Paragon Partition Manager froze during the partitioning and I had to reinstall Vista .
The only con is that you have to wait for JF's updates

I believe I also read here that rooting your phone voids your warrenty, so if you have a problem with it make sure you switch back to the official firmware before sending it in

androidmonkey said:
I read the wiki but it only tells you "Why you should" root your phone. Obviously Google removed root from the latest firmware for a reason. If its for security reasons, how can you be "safe" with a rooted phone? Can you still download paid apps from the App store with a rooted phone? How well does the Apps on the SD card work? The main reason I would want to root my phone is for the SD card app feature. The G1 space sucks ass and its constantly telling me I am low on space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try to answer your questions the best I can:
-I don't work for Google so be advised this IS pure speculation on my part. With that said, I think they removed root access for the masses to avoid the possibility of folks having their Android handsets compromised by malicious apps.
Though, having root doesn't necessarily mean this WILL happen to you.
So long as you have common sense, and know better to install apps from questionable sources, you'll be fine. Additionally, the JesusFreke firmwares have a "SuperUser Whitelist" app that will ask for escalated privileges whenever a process requires root.
This is provided as another layer of security.
So to say it again, do not allow apps/processes to run unless you KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY DO. Follow that and you won't have any problems.
-Market apps can be installed and used without issue. I have dozens apps installed (and yes, a few paid apps as well) and have had ZERO issues with them. Matter of fact, if you look through the market, you'll see several cool apps that require root (Task Manager, WiFi Tether, etc).
-Far as installing and running apps from the sdcard, I'll defer to someone else because I haven't done it myself. I prefer to wait until an easier, or official method becomes available. Though, I have moved the various caches (Web, Maps, Market, etc) to the sdcard without issue.
That helps to conserve space with the internal memory.
Hopefully that helps you.

Thanks for all the replies. So is it safe to say that if I only install apps from the Android Market I should be safe? Can programs on the Android Market be malicious? Hopefully Google is monitoring the applications for malicious code.
So, what is the "best" guide to use for rooting a RC33 phone?

programs on the market could possibly be malicious, read reviews, i found a game that said it needed the internet, gps, and some other stuff in order to work, but yet the app never used any of those features in the actual gameplay, thus i removed it and reported it as malicious because i frankly don't feel that it should need access to things it isn't gonna use. a general rule is that if a single person said it was malicious then don't install it, and never be the first to install an app. let someone else break their phone first

The only con for rooting your phone is that people who don't know any better usually end up bricking it. "oooh root yay! i don't know what it duz bat it sounds cool! oh no! i brcked it halp plz"

And you can still unbrick your phone pretty easily.

IzzeLing said:
The only con for rooting your phone is that people who don't know any better usually end up bricking it. "oooh root yay! i don't know what it duz bat it sounds cool! oh no! i brcked it halp plz"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol, your quote can be used on a LOL Cat.

i wouldnt say that waiting for the updates is technically waiting, when you have a rooted phone...
at least for me, i must have been on the bottom of t-mobile's randomized IMEI list when it came to updates.. I used to see people all around me have updates for weeks before me. Coincidentally i was the first to have mine... but the updates are released right from the google site, plus the wait time for JF and others to work their magic.
cant complain with a rooted phone, if anyone is skeptical about it... you CAN reverse the process

the.snks said:
-Far as installing and running apps from the sdcard, I'll defer to someone else because I haven't done it myself. I prefer to wait until an easier, or official method becomes available. Though, I have moved the various caches (Web, Maps, Market, etc) to the sdcard without issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've moved my apps and caches to the sdcard and now I never have to worry about running low on space.
I followed one of the tutorials about moving the apps, but when paid apps came out, I had some problems. The solution was to move not only the "app" directory but also the "app-private" directory to the sdcard. Once I did that, everything was fine. I am able to install both free and paid apps with no problems. I'm very glad I did it -- no regrets.
I have an 8gb sdcard and I partitioned 1gb to apps and caches (ext2 format) and 7gb to data (fat32 format).

unknown.soul said:
Superuser protects your phone by allowing programs you give permission to that use root. I can still see paid apps in the Market (I haven't bought any yet, but I will). I didn't move my apps onto my SD card because Paragon Partition Manager froze during the partitioning and I had to reinstall Vista .
The only con is that you have to wait for JF's updates
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rooting may be safe to people like you all, but rooting is definitely the downside of android. Sd card blank and file recognition errors are the opposition to what android has made. I will not root my phone again because of the unexpected long term damage this has caused to my phone. I will tell my friends not to root their phone unless they want to turn their android to ruins. These kind of problems happen for absolutely no reason at all.

ri123 said:
Rooting may be safe to people like you all, but rooting is definitely the downside of android. Sd card blank and file recognition errors are the opposition to what android has made. I will not root my phone again because of the unexpected long term damage this has caused to my phone. I will tell my friends not to root their phone unless they want to turn their android to ruins. These kind of problems happen for absolutely no reason at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I disagree with the statement "downside". Android is about open source and customization. The downside to root is that you need to spend a bit of extra time playing with your phone when it doesn't end up going the way you planned or there are bugs in a new Rom. Other than the extra time on the phone, I have not run into a downside. I have not looked back since I rooted.
Sent from my Kang Banged Dinc2

ri123 said:
Rooting may be safe to people like you all, but rooting is definitely the downside of android. Sd card blank and file recognition errors are the opposition to what android has made. I will not root my phone again because of the unexpected long term damage this has caused to my phone. I will tell my friends not to root their phone unless they want to turn their android to ruins. These kind of problems happen for absolutely no reason at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I 100% disagree with this statment. having a rooted phone in itself will not cause any errors. even the process of rooting won't brick a phone or cause problems (so long as you understand what you are doing). although there is the way out in right field chance of something going even if everything is done right (very hard to brick a phone if you truley know what you are doing and are sober at the time)
android has always been and (hopefully) always will be open source. the android code it self in pure aosp is in fact rooted. it is the carriers and cell phone makers and such that lock the bootloader and deny privalage. as any linux user knows it is easily possible to damage you phone/pc/etc if you don't know what you are doing, but having root privalage in itself causes no harm - only to the novice.
this stament of unexpected long term damaged caused by root is false, it was caused by someone not knowing what they were doing and shouldn't have root privalages in the first place.
*excuse my spelling errors as rooting a phone doesn't improve my gramar/spelling*
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium

demkantor said:
I 100% disagree with this statment. having a rooted phone in itself will not cause any errors. even the process of rooting won't brick a phone or cause problems (so long as you understand what you are doing). although there is the way out in right field chance of something going even if everything is done right (very hard to brick a phone if you truley know what you are doing and are sober at the time)
android has always been and (hopefully) always will be open source. the android code it self in pure aosp is in fact rooted. it is the carriers and cell phone makers and such that lock the bootloader and deny privalage. as any linux user knows it is easily possible to damage you phone/pc/etc if you don't know what you are doing, but having root privalage in itself causes no harm - only to the novice.
this stament of unexpected long term damaged caused by root is false, it was caused by someone not knowing what they were doing and shouldn't have root privalages in the first place.
*excuse my spelling errors as rooting a phone doesn't improve my gramar/spelling*
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To prevent factory reset bricking I had to move to a different Rom. I knew what I was doing. I returned to stock Rom and factory reset, and every zip I downloaded from my computer could not be recognised properly by my phone.
I know that android is based on pure root, but who should I blame if something goes wrong with my phone? Every rooted phone becomes faulty, why should I pay extra just because I can't download anymore roms?
Think about the random percentage of people that have had their phones bricked just because of rooting problems. I am one of them.
Your statement "only to the novice" is something I disagree with.
I remember when I read a thread about someone's Samsung Vibrant getting hard bricked all of a sudden! Or when I read a Sony Ericsson touchscreen refusing to work after light debugging. These people will most likely be paying for their android phones.
In a way, I do not completely disagree with you. In a way I believe that Android should start believing in its roots.
For the moment, I do not know who to blame for the mess my phone is in. I didn't do things wrong on purpose. So maybe it is better not to root. Maybe it is more advisable to complain to the creator of your phone if there is not "enough", or if there is too much bloatware. Maybe Android should be fixing my HTC! I need to stop all this unnecessary refusal from happening on my android. This is why I find the essence of rooting initially bad. When there is no limits, something can go wrong.
Please may I let you know that my touchscreen is mostly unresponsive. I will be surprised if I have got all of my spelling correct! If I still had the advantage of the warranty, I would be sending my phone straight to HTC to get repaired.
Sent from an unusually unresponsive touchscreen on my HTC Explorer A310e using xda app-developers app

ri123 said:
To prevent factory reset bricking I had to move to a different Rom. I knew what I was doing. I returned to stock Rom and factory reset, and every zip I downloaded from my computer could not be recognised properly by my phone.
I know that android is based on pure root, but who should I blame if something goes wrong with my phone? Every rooted phone becomes faulty, why should I pay extra just because I can't download anymore roms?
Think about the random percentage of people that have had their phones bricked just because of rooting problems. I am one of them.
I remember when I read a thread about someone's Samsung Vibrant getting hard bricked all of a sudden! Or when I read a Sony Ericsson touchscreen refusing to work after light debugging.
In a way, I do not completely disagree with you. In a way I believe that Android should start believing in its roots.
For the moment, I do not know who to blame for the mess my phone is in. I didn't do things wrong on purpose. So maybe it is better not to root. Maybe it is more advisable to complain to the creator of your phone if there is not "enough", or if there is too much bloatware. Maybe Android should be fixing my HTC! I need to stop all this unnecessary refusal from happening on my android. This is why I find the essence of rooting initially bad. When there is no limits, something can go wrong.
Sent from an unusually unresponsive touchscreen on my HTC Explorer A310e using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not trying to sound rude here but the only blame is to ones self if YOU screw up your phone.
yes you can blame a phone company when the hardware fails from normal use, or your cell phone carrier for adding useless apps. or well blame android for creating an operating system that at its heart allows one to have full access to every part of it.
android doesn't write the radio, android doesn't write the bootloader, they are not firmware or hardware only os. they also are not responsible for a bad rom.
I will say again the act of rooting your phone in itself causes no damage, only when you do something wrong during this process is it possible to brick your phone, and as for the percentage of people who did brick there phone 99.99% of them messed up, that means their own fault.
.01% had a major power surge while phone was updating via fastboot and their computer only coppied a portion of the firmware to the phone and then the dog kicked over the phone knooking the battery out leaving no bootoader... or whatever, it is hard to do this wrong
and again having a rooted phone will intself not brake hardware, not damage firmware, will not cause a single issue
the missue of having root, or the improper method of obtaining root is the only problem, and people who don't know what they are doing (fully understand) well just shouldn't root, or should learn to except blame at the very least...
done with my ranting, good day...
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium

demkantor said:
I'm not trying to sound rude here but the only blame is to ones self if YOU screw up your phone.
yes you can blame a phone company when the hardware fails from normal use, or your cell phone carrier for adding useless apps. or well blame android for creating an operating system that at its heart allows one to have full access to every part of it.
android doesn't write the radio, android doesn't write the bootloader, they are not firmware or hardware only os. they also are not responsible for a bad rom.
I will say again the act of rooting your phone in itself causes no damage, only when you do something wrong during this process is it possible to brick your phone, and as for the percentage of people who did brick there phone 99.99% of them messed up, that means their own fault.
.01% had a major power surge while phone was updating via fastboot and their computer only coppied a portion of the firmware to the phone and then the dog kicked over the phone knooking the battery out leaving no bootoader... or whatever, it is hard to do this wrong
and again having a rooted phone will intself not brake hardware, not damage firmware, will not cause a single issue
the missue of having root, or the improper method of obtaining root is the only problem, and people who don't know what they are doing (fully understand) well just shouldn't root, or should learn to except blame at the very least...
done with my ranting, good day...
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I have said,one of the problems with rooting is that people have to move off their Rom in case of factory reset bricking.
0.1% have got the limited service error or the bad zip file error with their phone practically in a trap.
Much more than 0.1% have the sdcard blank error
I understand root enough to install roms and unroot my phone.
I did not do this on purpose, I just installed stock Rom and factory reset and my phone did not work as it intended to.
This is why I shall, in the future, ACCEPT things and rant about my rooting experience to those people who would unconsciously root. More ranting is needed.
Sent from my HTC Explorer A310e using xda app-developers app

ri123 said:
As I have said,one of the problems with rooting is that people have to move off their Rom in case of factory reset bricking.
0.1% have got the limited service error or the bad zip file error with their phone practically in a trap.
Much more than 0.1% have the sdcard blank error
I understand root enough to install roms and unroot my phone.
I did not do this on purpose, I just installed stock Rom and factory reset and my phone did not work as it intended to.
This is why I shall, in the future, ACCEPT things and rant about my rooting experience to those people who would unconsciously root. More ranting is needed.
Sent from my HTC Explorer A310e using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
whenever you flash something to your phone expecially firmware you should check the md5sum, its a given and those 0.1% would not have a brick due to a curropt download if they did this so again not the fault of root
having root access WILL NOT cause your sd card slot to quit working, this just has no merrit, having root has just doesn't break hardware in itself, it just doesn't
depending on the phone and how you rooted and if you have an unlocked boot loader and loads of other question need to be figured out before you flash a stock rom, especially from bootloader (if the rom is packaged with a radio, hboot, recovery etc)
once you have true soff you can flash almost anything, including things that shouldn't be flashed. have a security flag is good for this exact purpose, to keep people from flashing what they shouldn't - yes this is how most people brick their phone, they don't fully understand.
and I'm not saying you stupid by I do agree it doesn't take a genius to flash a rom, but knowing the steps that someone has written down is diffrent then undertanding why it works
listen I know you said more ranting is neccessary, but it isn't, the fact is you figured out how to have fun with your phone by following some steps you read in a forum somewhere or watched a youtube video, that's great fun, I know I love it to.
but you didn't bother to figure out why it works or what to do/not to do, because you didn't you made a mistake, it happens, no one thinks less of you.
now you should learn from your mistake and learn to accept blame for making this make, no one told you to do what you did, and you didn't take the time to find out the repercutions of what you were about to do before you damaged your phone.
again root privalages in itself CAN'T harm your phone it just enables you to make a mistake as you have lost some security against it, just as owning a gun won't make you shoot someone but gives you the ability to do so (exuse my analogy as I know it is not apples to apples)
**** happens, get on with your life, no need to rant, no one thinks less of you, learn from mistakes, accept blame when you should... and as always exuse my speeling/grammar errors as root in it self won't make me smarter either
good night
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium

demkantor said:
whenever you flash something to your phone expecially firmware you should check the md5sum, its a given and those 0.1% would not have a brick due to a curropt download if they did this so again not the fault of root
having root access WILL NOT cause your sd card slot to quit working, this just has no merrit, having root has just doesn't break hardware in itself, it just doesn't
depending on the phone and how you rooted and if you have an unlocked boot loader and loads of other question need to be figured out before you flash a stock rom, especially from bootloader (if the rom is packaged with a radio, hboot, recovery etc)
once you have true soff you can flash almost anything, including things that shouldn't be flashed. have a security flag is good for this exact purpose, to keep people from flashing what they shouldn't - yes this is how most people brick their phone, they don't fully understand.
and I'm not saying you stupid by I do agree it doesn't take a genius to flash a rom, but knowing the steps that someone has written down is diffrent then undertanding why it works
listen I know you said more ranting is neccessary, but it isn't, the fact is you figured out how to have fun with your phone by following some steps you read in a forum somewhere or watched a youtube video, that's great fun, I know I love it to.
but you didn't bother to figure out why it works or what to do/not to do, because you didn't you made a mistake, it happens, no one thinks less of you.
now you should learn from your mistake and learn to accept blame for making this make, no one told you to do what you did, and you didn't take the time to find out the repercutions of what you were about to do before you damaged your phone.
again root privalages in itself CAN'T harm your phone it just enables you to make a mistake as you have lost some security against it, just as owning a gun won't make you shoot someone but gives you the ability to do so (exuse my analogy as I know it is not apples to apples)
**** happens, get on with your life, no need to rant, no one thinks less of you, learn from mistakes, accept blame when you should... and as always exuse my speeling/grammar errors as root in it self won't make me smarter either
good night
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply.
I feel more people should know the repercussions and 'cons' of rooting so I thought of involving my situation as it could affect someone's choice of rooting.
What is a security flag? My phone is s on and yet it does not work.
Also, what is 'true soff'?
Sent from my HTC Explorer A310e using xda app-developers app

Have Froyo early what next?

I have put Froyo on my phone early as many others have and there are a few bugs on it, so what I am wondering is when it officially comes out will there be "some" additional updates since it is already on my phone or will I have to reinstall it with the official version from the market? What I am wondering is just update any further updates from the market with the Froyo I have? or with the public release in the next couple weeks install that? does it matter? if this makes any sense what I am saying LOL

I have the exact same question in my mind. Remember the 2.1-update?
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My wife and I both have the Nexus One. I decided to stay on CM 5.0.7 Test 3 until he gets the chance to work on his 2.2 rom, I'm in no hurry.
My wife wanted it on hers because she wouldn't allow me to root her phone.
After putting 2.2 on hers there is some pretty bad stability issues. Her phone has straight up frozen at least 8 times since yesterday requiring a battery pull.
When he phone isn't being a temperamental babby its great but when it starts to chug the whole house of cards comes crashing down.
Since I rooted mine I just make nandroid backups and restore from that so life is simple for me but with hers how do I restore back to total stock?
Do I reboot into the bootloader and at the screen where I would typically apply the update.zip just use the restore option or would the restore option in the phones settings work? I.e Factory Default.
While she is semi tech savvy I just don't have the time or patients to deal with her phone issues right now so I guess she'll just need to be on 2.1 until the official release.

[Update] Froyo May Have Been Launched Prematurely
http://phandroid.com/2010/05/24/froyo-may-have-been-launched-prematurely/

rensky said:
I have the exact same question in my mind. Remember the 2.1-update?
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sorry I am a newbie 2.2 is my first update that's why I am posting this to see if I didn't f*** up my phone or something. other than that it seems to be working fine with a few bugs here and there and 2 things updated today from the market, so am wondering leave it be or get rid of it and reinstall the official one? thnx for responses

Enndr said:
My wife and I both have the Nexus One. I decided to stay on CM 5.0.7 Test 3 until he gets the chance to work on his 2.2 rom, I'm in no hurry.
My wife wanted it on hers because she wouldn't allow me to root her phone.
After putting 2.2 on hers there is some pretty bad stability issues. Her phone has straight up frozen at least 8 times since yesterday requiring a battery pull.
When he phone isn't being a temperamental babby its great but when it starts to chug the whole house of cards comes crashing down.
Since I rooted mine I just make nandroid backups and restore from that so life is simple for me but with hers how do I restore back to total stock?
Do I reboot into the bootloader and at the screen where I would typically apply the update.zip just use the restore option or would the restore option in the phones settings work? I.e Factory Default.
While she is semi tech savvy I just don't have the time or patients to deal with her phone issues right now so I guess she'll just need to be on 2.1 until the official release.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what I understand, if you want to go back to ERE27/EPB54, you would need to either restore a Nandroid image that has those ROM's or download an unsigned original ERE27/EPB54 image.
When you say battery pull, are you actually physically pulling the battery whe the phone freezes? I've read a couple of posts/articles where that might be harmful to the phone and so what's recommended instead is to perform a soft-reboot.
You can do so by holding down the power button + volume down key + trackball at the same time. If done so correctly, the phone will automatically reboot in a few seconds.

Enndr said:
but with hers how do I restore back to total stock?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No can do. No unlocked bootloader = no regression. You either unlock the bootloader or live with Froyo.
I would consider a factory reset though, as I have no stability problems what so ever.

[Q] Installing ROMs. What Precautions to take?

I used to be a Droid 1 user and I played with a lot of custom ROMs. Got the Droid 4 on release day and I'm thinking of playing around with custom ROMs.
If I install the recovery and a custom ROM, isn't the factory restore option always on the phone so anytime I want, I can restore the phone to the day I got it?
Are there any downsides to installing custom ROMs as of now (such as battery, glitches, etc)
I rooted my phone and I've seen a decline in battery life. There is another thread about it but I wanted to ask here, anybody else have this issue?
Lastly, is it worth installing custom ROMs now or just waiting for the official ICS update? I basically just want a working phone with the best battery possible. The only reason I rooted was to uninstall the bloatware on the phone however wifi tether and screenshot are nice to have.
Thanks!

Installing any custom ROM right now is going to be a little risky simply because there are no fastboot files to restore your phone with. Now, SafeStrap does a pretty good job of minimizing that risk by creating what is essentially a dualboot environment allowing you to run a secondary ROM on your phone while leaving the stock ROM intact.
I am running the ICS Beta ROM by Hashcode and it is running really well for me. Battery life has been fine, pretty much on par with stock. Being a beta there are things that are not perfect but I am using it as a daily driver with no issues. You can find a list of known bugs in the ROM OP. Although it seems to be hit a miss with some of them. I have had no issues with wifi or mobile data connections at all.
I ran stock rooted for about 1 1/2 weeks and didn't notice any decline in battery life personally. Not I froze apps rather than uninstalling anything so I could get them back if I needed to. And I really didn't freeze much unless it was something I saw running in the background that I knew I wouldn't need/use.
Really, if you are just looking for a phone that works with the best battery life, you are probably better off staying with stock. In my experience with the Droid 2, no ROM I ran could touch stock for battery life. And really, I think the stock experience on the D4 is fine. The bloatware wasn't overly bad IMO, smart actions is pretty neat, and the UI was plenty snappy. I'm just a flashaholic.

I am quite happy with stock after debloating it.
Sent from my DROID4 using XDA

Thanks for explaining safestrap. Does it actually set up a dual-boot environment, or does it swap out /system, /data, etc. I've tried reading hashcode's blog, but the instructions are a little fuzzy on what exactly is going on. I don't have my D4 yet, and I'd like to get a handle on what exactly safestrap is doing before I take the plunge.
Currently I have a D1 and I'll fully admit I'm spoiled that it is essentially unbrickable. Once, I screwed it up so bad that it wouldn't even boot up into recovery. I have no idea how I managed that, but a quick session with RSDlite fixed everything...
Of course, I know a lot more now than I did back then, but here is hoping we get hold of some fastboot images for the D4 soon...

I finally took the plunge and installed Safestrap. Once your phone is rooted, you just run an APK installed on your phone. The process feels incredibly clean, and I was completely comfortable that as long as I was careful, nothing bad would happen. This proved to be true.
It really does set up a dual-boot. I spent several hours today playing with CM9, and when I was done, I simply disabled the safe system, and the phone booted right back up into my rooted and debloated stock. The most dangerous part is making sure that you do NOT try to flash over the non-safe system, and, in fact, Safestrap generally won't even let you do that.
Not only did I find that Safestrap worked great, but CM9 works better on the Droid 4 than almost any other device I have played with it on. If they can make sure that the data connection is reliable and get the font camera working, it is practically ready for prime time. Everything else works great. I am now confident that we will see CM9 for the Droid 4 as soon as CM itself is complete and stable, since drivers do not seem to be a problem on this phone. I also suspect we will see some CM7-based roms quite quickly as well.
I am also very glad of the option to always easily revert back to the stock system without losing anything, it will make going to the Verizon store very easy if I ever need to.

I also came from a D1, installing ROMs was so easy, I'm a little hesitant on this one especially since a genuine ICS update is on the way. I might wait for that before I try custom ROMs. I use a front camera a lot so CM9 is unfortunately out of question. My battery issue was solved with a calibrate (deleting batterystats) even though it's not supposed to work, I can confirm that it definitely worked for me.

Once you toggle on the safe system, installing ROMS is just as easy as it was on the D1. What is nice, though, is you can keep your stock system fully in tact. I actually keep my phone on a simple rooted stock, but when a friend asks about Android ICS, I just toggle on the safe system, and boot it up. When I'm done, I toggle off the safe system, and back to stock. Safestrap is awesome.

core2kid... this is moto, the official update is gonna take 3-6 months so i would not suggest waiting it out.
i came from a D1 as well and safestrap bugged me out for a while... but once i installed and started using it i really like it. think of it as a dual-boot.
1 is your stock system that you do not f** with... you just leave it so that you have a backup should you f** up your...
2nd system is the one you flash all your ROMs on... no matter what you do to it, the first system is not touched, so you have to try REALLY hard to brick it.

Thanks. I'll give it a go. Last question, if I have hardware issues with the phone, is there a way to restore it to factory so I can warranty it? My main concern is my battery dying. I don't want to be stuck with a useless phone because the battery is in built.

i cant say with 100% certainty, but theres got to be a way.
as for the battery... it will probably die the day after your warranty is up, and by then there will be DIY replacement kits.

greekchampion04 said:
as for the battery... it will probably die the day after your warranty is up, and by then there will be DIY replacement kits.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With my luck, I can see that happening :/

[Q] Thinking about unrooting. Have a few questions first.

So I learned about rooting mid last year around the time the Bionic was released and I decided to get the phone and root it. It sounded great and it has been, but not entirely. For instance I'm still on 5.5.886 because as far as I know the only way to update is to revert to stock? Which I honestly haven't felt like doing. I guess I really don't mess with my phone enough, or even know enough to take advantage of some of the major things that make rooting worthwhile.
There are a few things I have done though that I really like, though. So my questions are:
Without root, is there anyway to have a percentage battery display without a tacky looking app? Remove the clock from the taskbar? Remove Verizon's bloatware?
What data can I expect to lose if I do a FXZ back to stock?
Will ICS have toggle icons for WiFi, GPS, etc. that appear in the "pulldown menu"? Or is that more of a feature for certain phones?
And lastly would you recommend I unroot or look into other options?
I'm still weighing the pros and cons of being rooted so I'm just looking for some further insight to push me in one direction or the other.

Murdoc419 said:
So I learned about rooting mid last year around the time the Bionic was released and I decided to get the phone and root it. It sounded great and it has been, but not entirely. For instance I'm still on 5.5.886 because as far as I know the only way to update is to revert to stock? Which I honestly haven't felt like doing. I guess I really don't mess with my phone enough, or even know enough to take advantage of some of the major things that make rooting worthwhile.
There are a few things I have done though that I really like, though. So my questions are:
Without root, is there anyway to have a percentage battery display without a tacky looking app? Remove the clock from the taskbar? Remove Verizon's bloatware?
What data can I expect to lose if I do a FXZ back to stock?
Will ICS have toggle icons for WiFi, GPS, etc. that appear in the "pulldown menu"? Or is that more of a feature for certain phones?
And lastly would you recommend I unroot or look into other options?
I'm still weighing the pros and cons of being rooted so I'm just looking for some further insight to push me in one direction or the other.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is my first smart phone and bought it October last year. I educated myself and rooted a month later. To me, this is just a mini PC and I want full control over it. Just like buying a Dell, or HP, I want to remove all of the junk software that uses up computer resources.
I also started on. 886. Then 43v3r rooted. First loaded Bionic Bootstrap and made a backup. Then downloaded Titanium Backup and started freezing programs. At some point I had deleted color note and didn't even realize it was a stock application. So when I went to Upgrade to .901 leaked, it failed. Ended up restoring the .886 bootstrap back up. Then .901 leaked installed fine.
Here are the reasons I like to have my phone rooted: Remove bloatware. Maintain full system back ups. Remove ads from applications, unless donating remove the ads. Have access to applications that require a rooted system. And finally, since I have control issues, I do not want someone telling me what I can and cannot do with my "mini PC".
So now, I have gone from .901 leaked, to .902 OTA update, now running .905 OTA update. In between, I had frozen bloatware with titanium backup and thawed before the next OTA update.
Other answers:
I use Sense Snalog Clock application that has a battery monitor on it. Not sure how accurate it is, but it works for me. Also, it is a very nice customizable clock that you can add to your home page.
I am pretty sure you can use titanium backup to backup all of your applications and data before you FXZ to stock.
I am unsure of what you mean about the toggles in the "pull down" menu. I use on/off widget pack by curvefish. Not sure about ICS yet, as I have not upgraded to it. Pretty happy with the phone as it is right now with .905.
Being that I am a novice user, I am not sure of the best process to utilize to get you back to stock. But, I would go back to stock 886. Then forever root. Dhacker29's (if I wrote his use name correctly) procedures works very well for me. I manually forever rooted. His processed kept me rooted through all of the upgrades.
As you probably have gathered by now, if you are willing to tinker with your phone a little bit more, I would suggest that you stay rooted.
I hope this helps. Good luck.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

So I've been looking at some of the more recent ROMs and like a couple of them pretty well so I think I'm gonna stay rooted. However I have to be on system version 905 to install any of them. Is the best way to get to 905 to use RSD to get back to 902 stock unrooted then forever root and upgrade to 905?

Pretty much, yes. However I can't speak for the 4ever root as I've never used it. I've only used zergrush and/or Pete's 1 click to get root on 902, then used voodoo root keeper to temporarily unroot so I could take the 905 OTA and reroot.

Murdoc419 said:
So I've been looking at some of the more recent ROMs and like a couple of them pretty well so I think I'm gonna stay rooted. However I have to be on system version 905 to install any of them. Is the best way to get to 905 to use RSD to get back to 902 stock unrooted then forever root and upgrade to 905?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's the link to manually forever root.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1312555
This procedure allowed me to maintain root from .893, to leaked .901, OTA .902, and now OTA .905. Forgot to mention in my previous post that I went from .886, to .893, then to .901. Not .886 to .901.
Use Root Explorer and e sure to select "Mount R/W" before you open mount_ex3.sh to add the text at the bottom. After you add the text, hit the back button once and select "Mount R/O". Otherwise the text you add will not stay in the file.

Here's a screen shot of my mount_ex3.sh file. The last three lines of text are what I added for forever root. This was easier to me than hooking up to a PC and running one of the root programs.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

Ok so I used RSD to get back to stock .902. Then upgraded to .905 and used MotoFail to root. I ended up installing Eclipse 3.0. Now I'm having some problems with my phone. I don't want to submit a bug report until I know if it's the ROM or my phone. I figured I'd just post what's going on in here instead of creating a new topic.
I was texting a couple people last night and they both stopped replying at the same time. It was kind of late though so I thought maybe they fell asleep. Then today at work my ringtone started going off. No one was calling me though and the only way I got the ringtone to stop was to power off the phone. So I sent a text to one of the people I was talking to the night before and asked if she got my texts. She told me she didn't and I sent another text that she didn't get. When I got home I sent a text to my mom to see if my phone was alright and she got it so I had her reply to make sure I was receiving messages. I received her reply 15 times. I'm not sure if this has something to do with the ROM or the phone itself. What do you guys think?

[Q] Kingo Root Question

I used the Kingo Root method to root my Note 3 that was running 4.3. When I decided that I was ready to go ahead with the AT&T 4.4.2 FOTA; I used it to un-root so my phone would accept the update. Both processes indicated that they were successful. However; my Note 3 will not accept the update under any circumstances. It downloads the FOTA - which takes close to an hour - and gets to the 25% install point after rebooting and fails with "Invalid Signature" appearing for a few seconds after the "Installation Failed!". It then unceremoniously does a factory restore and I'm left with, yet, another setup procedure and reinstallation of all of my apps, passwords, etc.
This has happened twice with two different phones - the other being my Samsung S4. Exactly the same sequence. I took the S4 to Best Buy, after AT&T forced an update to it, and it, too, failed. Samsung did a direct flash to the S4 and it indicated that it took the 4.4.2 successfully. However, when the phone rebooted, it was still 4.3. Samsung scratched their head and couldn't figure it out. I see no sense in try to do the same with the Note 3 since it will likely be the same experience.
Neither phone show the KNOX trigger having been tripped, and both show "Official" as though nothing had ever been done. I never did any modifications to either phone, other than the root / un-root to stall the FOTA, until I was sure that I was comfortable with the update.
I sent an email to the same effect as this post to Kingo, with no response.
Has anyone had the same experience?
I know that for a while, there was a great deal of concern over the Kingo Root method, but thought that it had been resolved and that any myths had been debunked.
Did I shoot myself in the foot?

Hey friend, this has been asked A LOT in this forum. All you had to do what look through the first page and you'd see this topic.
However you're scared and our phone are probably our more personal and needed device so I understand your impatience and panic.
How to fix: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2701062
Be well, relax, everything is going to be ok. You're not alone . We're with you my new friend.
Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

Sorry for posting in the wrong thread. I searched over the weekend, but didn't see what looked like an answer.
Thank you so much for posting the direct link! And, thanks for not mountain climbing me about the gaffe.
I'm still fairly new to this, so I genuinely beg everyone's pardon for the mis-post. I'm still trying to learn how to navigate through the different sub-forums. I'll try to be more courteous in the future.

Now, I'm in a REAL pickle! AT&T is trying to cram KK down my throat on my Note 3 and I have about 4 hours (according to their website) to respond before they force it. On the AT&T variant; there is no way that I know of to block the update; except temporarily. Then; it's back to the wash, rinse, repeat cycle of having to restore my phone and apps - EVERY time the update fails!
I still haven't done the downgrade; because after rooting and installing a custom 4.4.2 ROM on my kid's phone least night; I decided that I want to re-root my Note 3 and install KNOXRAID as a custom on my Note 3.
My dilemma is; if AT&T crams the update down my throat - as they did with my S4; it's going to fail again, and I'm going to have to start from scratch again, and again until I find a solution.
I tried re-rooting my Note 3 with Kingo, but it fails every time, now.
So; what should I do? My hunch is that I'm going to have to do the 4.3 fix and restore it back to factory, but then it would allow AT&T to actually force THEIR KK into the N3, and I'd be screwed, until a root method is obtained for KK.
PLEASE! Any suggestions? I suppose, for the short term; I could cut off my N3; install my SIM into my S4 and use it until I'm able to resolve the issue with the N3. I need Total Recall to work on my N3, and KK will definitely kill it.
*UPDATE* I turned the N3 off, removed the battery and SIM and installed the SIM in the S4, and am using it for the short term. Unfortunately; my S4 already has the AT&T KK update installed, and I need to resolve the issue with the N3 as quickly as I can. My hunch is; to avoid them doing it again; I'm going to have to turn off Wi-Fi and place the N3 in "Airplane" mode and leave the SIM card out of it until I'm comfortable - and have a clear method of installing KNOXRAID.
Still hoping for a solution. At this pint; I'm not that concerned about tripping the KNOX sensor on the N3, but would prefer to be able to flash back if I needed to enforce my warranty.
Thanks!