Database Develop

[Q] XT1068 OTA Lollipop update failing

Today my XT1068 offered me the 22.26.1.en.GB update, but it's failing to install.
The phone reboots and attempts to install the update. The progress bar gets to approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the way across before a red triangle appears and the phone reboots back to KitKat.
My phone was rooted (using SuperSU), but I used SuperSU's built-in clean-up feature to unroot my phone before applying the Lollipop update.
The bootloader is unlocked, but the recovery is stock; I did not install a custom recovery but instead booted TWRP temporarily to install SuperSU.
I'm comfortable fiddling with adb and fastboot, and with digging around the filesystem. Any suggestions of where I can look to find any error messages which might shed some light on why the update failed? Could the failure be related to the previous rooting of my phone, or could something else be breaking the update?

@Loganberry
Have you modified /system files in any way?
If yes you have to restore them back.
If nothing helps, with unlocked bootloader it's propably much faster to just flash your stock firmware again and do ota than to search why it doesn't work.

I can confirm that ota update can be performed on rooted phone .I was thinking that is not possible but I was curious and tried.
I was on unlocked bootloader and rooted KK , german firmware 21.85.23 with instaled xposed framework and gravity box.
Update was successful without any error and for now everything work ok.

Loganberry said:
Today my XT1068 offered me the 22.26.1.en.GB update, but it's failing to install.
The phone reboots and attempts to install the update. The progress bar gets to approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the way across before a red triangle appears and the phone reboots back to KitKat.
My phone was rooted (using SuperSU), but I used SuperSU's built-in clean-up feature to unroot my phone before applying the Lollipop update.
The bootloader is unlocked, but the recovery is stock; I did not install a custom recovery but instead booted TWRP temporarily to install SuperSU.
I'm comfortable fiddling with adb and fastboot, and with digging around the filesystem. Any suggestions of where I can look to find any error messages which might shed some light on why the update failed? Could the failure be related to the previous rooting of my phone, or could something else be breaking the update?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
flash the GB 4.4.4 in my signature then try to update OTA again

dpdp73 said:
@Loganberry
Have you modified /system files in any way?
If yes you have to restore them back.
If nothing helps, with unlocked bootloader it's propably much faster to just flash your stock firmware again and do ota than to search why it doesn't work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
reefuge said:
flash the GB 4.4.4 in my signature then try to update OTA again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I'd forgotten about Busybox and a couple other apps which modifed /system. Reflashing from scratch was the easier option.
I flashed GB 4.4.4 as advised and the Lollipop update then applied without any problems. Thanks for the assistance.

Uninstalling SuperSU caused S5 Active to brick, Odin flash failing

My last post got no attention, so here is my second attempt.
A software update rolled out for my 5.1 Lollipop S5 Active, and since I wasn't really utilizing my root extensively, I decided I'd get rid of it to receive this update. Unfortunately, I didn't do a whole lot of research and decided I should start by uninstalling my SuperSU. After all, it seemed harmless. I then rebooted, and the thing will not surpass the AT&T boot animation.
The symptoms pointed towards a simple soft brick (i.e. gets to animation, recovery and bootloader not locked). However, I have not been able to successfully flash a fresh firmware onto the device with Odin. SamMobile only has one firmware release for this device, and it is the 4.4.2 version. Is this why the file is failing to flash? If so, how can I get around this issue? Thanks in advance!

sk8chkn said:
My last post got no attention, so here is my second attempt.
A software update rolled out for my 5.1 Lollipop S5 Active, and since I wasn't really utilizing my root extensively, I decided I'd get rid of it to receive this update. Unfortunately, I didn't do a whole lot of research and decided I should start by uninstalling my SuperSU. After all, it seemed harmless. I then rebooted, and the thing will not surpass the AT&T boot animation.
The symptoms pointed towards a simple soft brick (i.e. gets to animation, recovery and bootloader not locked). However, I have not been able to successfully flash a fresh firmware onto the device with Odin. SamMobile only has one firmware release for this device, and it is the 4.4.2 version. Is this why the file is failing to flash? If so, how can I get around this issue? Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now if I remember correctly (if i am wrong someone please correct me) if your phone was on 5.0+ then you can not downgrade. Same thing with the build number where the old is NF4 i think, and the newest is OF3 with 5.0. my advice is to scour the internet and find the newest flash file. i know there is a 5.0 out there somewhere.

January ota update help needed

OK I got the notification to update today it's MMB29S, I am on K. I am rooted but stock, unlocked using systemless root for root. I've always been rooted and expected it to fail and have to install manually but this time because I'm not rooted like the old way. So i downloaded and went to install to my surprise dead Android with the triangle didn't show but it went to custom recovery screen twrp. I just hit restart because I've never not had a fail and never seen it do this before. Well when it restarted I was not updated and still on K. I also for the life of me can't get it to redo the ota. Tried to clear system service in apps and recheck but nothing.
So my question is since I'm new to systemless root what should I have done when it went to custom recovery? So that way if I can get it to pop up again I can be updated. Thank you in advance for any help and it would be awesome if possible to update this way without having to manually do it.

My best guess, based on what Chainfire replied to me when I asked about OTA, is that because you're somehow rooted the OTA will refuse to install. He said that using the "unroot" function in v2.63 (and I suppose in subsequent versions) he was able to apply the OTA and then just had to re-root.
As to the OTA, I read in the long-distant past that once it's been provided to your device you sort of go to the back of the queue, and even pressing the "check for system update" button has no effect. One day your turn will come again. When it happens, before you press the "install now" button, use the unroot function, reboot, and give it another go.
And I would really appreciate it if you could report back on the success or failure, just so we all know - thanks...
And before I close... your alternative is just to download the full ROM from Google, unzip everything in sight (including the zip within the zip), copy system.img to a convenient folder, and use Fastboot to flash system. After that you'll need to re-root (simple flash) and when you reboot everything will be as it was, apart from the version and security update date. I did it myself to MMB29S a week or so ago.
But my lawyer advises me to advise you to take a full backup first and store it off your device before you do anything to your device - just in case, you know?

I will definitely reply if I get the update again in a few days. If it doesn't I'll probably do it manually. I was just really surprised I hadn't gotten the error, just so used to it. Thank you for the info though.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to install an OTA don't you need to be completely stock, including recovery?

If I'm not mistaken but since 4.3 (I'm probably wrong) if your rooted (before systemless root) when you try to the ota you will always get the dead Android because rooting changes the system files causing the update when it does is checks to think your system is corrupt.
Also it was really bad when people tried going from 5.x.x to 6.x even doing it manually some of us got bootlooped or when starting the phone up after updating manually saying system is corrupt but still starting up fine. Leaving like me having to completely clear out everything and installing the factory image just to not be corrupt and able to use Android pay.
Systemless root though I've not had a single problem and still able to use AP. And is also the first time in years I've gotten as far as I did with the OTA.

Rbh50815 said:
OK I got the notification to update today it's MMB29S, I am on K. I am rooted but stock, unlocked using systemless root for root. I've always been rooted and expected it to fail and have to install manually but this time because I'm not rooted like the old way. So i downloaded and went to install to my surprise dead Android with the triangle didn't show but it went to custom recovery screen twrp. I just hit restart because I've never not had a fail and never seen it do this before. Well when it restarted I was not updated and still on K. I also for the life of me can't get it to redo the ota. Tried to clear system service in apps and recheck but nothing.
So my question is since I'm new to systemless root what should I have done when it went to custom recovery? So that way if I can get it to pop up again I can be updated. Thank you in advance for any help and it would be awesome if possible to update this way without having to manually do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These small ota's can be done with boot modifications because they don't include any boot.img changes and if they do then they just blanket overwrite what's already there. The only part that is checked is /system. However TWRP won't ever install an ota update for compatibility reasons. Even if you reflash the stock recovery then you'll fail the ota because when you installed TWRP it protected itself (by modifying /system) from being overwritten by the stock recovery which is what unmodded stock android will always do on boot by default. And there are 2 things the ota verification looks for when updating: 1. It looks for whether /system has been ever mounted as Read/Write. 2. It hash checks the /system, if it finds any mismatch it fails. As for the update not showing up again, the ota checker hides the update after a failure to stop from flooding the download server. If you want to extract the update zip you can look in /cache for the zip. But since you don't have an unmodded /system you might as well just download the newest factory image and manually flash the system.img

You can use Wug NRT, unroot with MMB29S provided in the NRT , then root.

Root 5.1.1 or 6.0.1?

I have a TMobile Note 4 SM-N910T. It's currently on 5.1.1 stock and I just got the OTA Marshmallow update notification. I'd like to try Marshmallow out, but if I allow the OTA update, will I be able to root it later? Or is 6.0.1 unrootable (for now)? If I root it now (before updating to MM) will I still get the OTA update? And will it still be rooted after the update? So many questions!

ota then root

I OTA'ed, now the phone randomly reboots several times a day, and some apps don't work correctly. Great.

factory reset.

*sigh* I was afraid you were going to say that. Now the problem is backing it up. I have a Titanium Backup Pro license, but I only use it on my old rooted GS2. The Note 4 is not rooted so TB won't run on it. All the rooting tutorials say "back up your phone before you root" but you need root to run TB. Chicken or egg? I guess I could try Samsung Kies, don't know if it will back up everything. My photos are backed up to Google Photos, I guess everything else is replaceable, but I would really rather not have to reinstall all my apps one by one after a factory reset.
That brings up another question: when you to go Settings/Backup and Reset, I have "Backup my data" set to On and linked to my Google account, but nowhere can I find documentation of exactly WHAT gets backed up or to WHERE (it says to "Google servers" but what the heck does that mean? I can't find it on my Google Drive or anywhere else on my Google account dashboard.)
I do greatly appreciate your help, by the way.

You could try reinstalling through kies or smart switch. Make sure to clear caches before and after. And see if that works. If it doesnt help, you could flash recovery, root, try to backup as much as you can between reboots and then factory reset. Your apps should automatically download from play store. But without the titbackup files you'll lose settings and data in a lot of apps that Google doesn't backup.
I unlocked your mum's bootloader.

kydar said:
I have a TMobile Note 4 SM-N910T. It's currently on 5.1.1 stock and I just got the OTA Marshmallow update notification. I'd like to try Marshmallow out, but if I allow the OTA update, will I be able to root it later? Or is 6.0.1 unrootable (for now)? If I root it now (before updating to MM) will I still get the OTA update? And will it still be rooted after the update? So many questions!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Were you able to downgrade back to 5.1.1? My phone also download the MM ota but I haven't installed it. I rooted 5.1.1 first and am trying to locate where exactly the MM ota downloaded to.
Been hearing too much about problems with MM.

Shad0wsabr3 said:
Were you able to downgrade back to 5.1.1? My phone also download the MM ota but I haven't installed it. I rooted 5.1.1 first and am trying to locate where exactly the MM ota downloaded to.
Been hearing too much about problems with MM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There aren't that many problems with MM. Just superficial stuff like not having mobile data toggle. The problems you are hearing about a factory reset will fix. Like lag, jankyness, apps loading, phone freezing temporarily. You won't be able to do OTA. It will fail because of root. You need to titanium backup or whatever method you prefer of backing up data and flash through kies, odin or smart switch. Probably easier to go that route unless you only did minor things with root like just block ads, then you can probably get away with flashing stock recovery and then OTA. You still might have to factory reset like I had to even though I flashed whole rom through smart switch. If you have xposed or modified something like swapping recent apps and back key like me, then you'll need to flash marshmallow whole and start over after backing up.
Afaik, you can't downgrade to 5.1.1 unless somebody figured out a workaround or you only flashed everything except bootloader.
I unlocked your mum's bootloader.

@Shad0wsabr3, my phone gave me the choice to delay the upgrade for a while, but eventually just did it without my consent. I suppose you could download stock 5.1.1 from sammobile if you really wanted to downgrade. I just wish I could figure out how to back up my (unrooted) phone so I could then do a factory reset and see if it helps the problems I'm having.

kydar said:
@Shad0wsabr3, my phone gave me the choice to delay the upgrade for a while, but eventually just did it without my consent. I suppose you could download stock 5.1.1 from sammobile if you really wanted to downgrade. I just wish I could figure out how to back up my (unrooted) phone so I could then do a factory reset and see if it helps the problems I'm having.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Iv never backed up an unrooted device so I wouldn't know. Glad you nrought that up as Iv been meaning to look into that.
Would you happen to know where the downloaded ota file location is? My phone downloaded it and I keep postponing it.

Sorry, idk exactly where in the file system it is. All I can caution you again is, I kept postponing it and postponing it, and then one day the phone just popped up a message saying it was going to reboot and update, whether I liked it or not. Well, it didn't actually SAY whether I liked it or not but it did decide that I had postponed the update long enough and it was going to apply the update, giving me no option to postpone it any longer. That sort of pissed me off.
Please let me know if you come up with a backup solution. I've tried SimpleADB or whatever it is called these days, and another app that claimed to be able to back up an unrooted phone. Neither of them worked as advertised.

Where are the root instructions for completely stock 910T with MM update?

vernj123 said:
Where are the root instructions for completely stock 910T with MM update?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/not...overy-n910t-t3-marshmallow-pe3-guide-t3406870

kydar said:
Sorry, idk exactly where in the file system it is. All I can caution you again is, I kept postponing it and postponing it, and then one day the phone just popped up a message saying it was going to reboot and update, whether I liked it or not. Well, it didn't actually SAY whether I liked it or not but it did decide that I had postponed the update long enough and it was going to apply the update, giving me no option to postpone it any longer. That sort of pissed me off.
Please let me know if you come up with a backup solution. I've tried SimpleADB or whatever it is called these days, and another app that claimed to be able to back up an unrooted phone. Neither of them worked as advertised.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm still researching what your dealing with. As for me I found the ota file. For those looking for it this is how and where I found it....
With RomToolbox I went to root browser. Then to data folder and a folder named fota. Within the fota folder is the ota update named update.zip. I erased that and then went into Titanium Backup and chose to freeze both software update files. So far no constant reminders that I have an update ready to be installed.
Hope this may help.

Question Will root persist after an OTA update?

I've wondered this ever since my Tab S8+ reported it's device status as official despite me having flashed the tablet with magisk-patched firmware and asked me to update. This same exact scenario has happened with my rooted Tab S7+. However, I rooted that by flashing Magisk in TWRP rather than flashing patched firmware with Odin. I don't think anyone has tried applying an OTA update on their rooted Tab S8 device since the latest firmware isn't available yet, and could result in needed to flash patched firmware again. Then again, most rooted device will have their devices report as custom instead of official, so that may be why.
I'm willing to try this out on my Tab S7+ first as that device has TWRP, and I can easily restore my device to a rooted state afterwards. Since both tablets are relatively similar, I'll assume that if root persists after updating in the Tab S7+ then it should be safe to do so on the S8+ I'm curious of doing this solely for stability and performance updates in combination with everything root access grants.

With any part of the firmware patched, OTAs won't work - they'll fail. You could also wind up with a brick - most likely one you can recover from but I wouldn't bet either way on that. As always, have everything backed up in case the worst happens.
Since I still won't get my Tab S8 Ultra for another 10 days (unless they delay again), I haven't paid too close attention to the rooting instructions specific to this, and have only made note of them, however, the basic rule still applies - if any part of the firmware has been modified from stock, then OTAs will recognize that it's been modified and fail to apply - or as I said, it could possibly try to apply what it can but you could wind up with a mix and match of different firmware versions due to the OTA failing eventually, which would need some manual work to recover from - or very worst, you might need to start over from scratch and lose everything.
When I'm on any rooted device, I go into Developer options and disable Automatic system updates. It's still possible you could get an update prompt if you manually check for an update, but it's not advised to use OTAs when rooted.
I've always been a practitioner on all devices of flashing the full new firmware updates and re-rooting, however, I know that at least with devices with dual system partitions like Google Pixels (as far as I'm aware, Samsung still hasn't adopted dual partitions yet), there have been ways to apply Magisk to a manually sideloaded OTA, although I've observed other users who do this and something inevitably goes wrong with the process from time to time.
Not that full firmware flashes are immune to things going wrong.
Edit: If you try an OTA on yours, by all means, let us know what happens.
Edit 2: Adding TWRP to the mix may, or may not, affect the viability of applying OTAs. I've hardly used TWRP on any device in the last five years, so I'm not sure if it's smart about some things and can take root into account, but since TWRP doesn't exist on the Tab S8 (I don't have any older Tab), it won't matter for me.

roirraW edor ehT said:
With any part of the firmware patched, OTAs won't work - they'll fail. You could also wind up with a brick - most likely one you can recover from but I wouldn't bet either way on that. As always, have everything backed up in case the worst happens.
Since I still won't get my Tab S8 Ultra for another 10 days (unless they delay again), I haven't paid too close attention to the rooting instructions specific to this, and have only made note of them, however, the basic rule still applies - if any part of the firmware has been modified from stock, then OTAs will recognize that it's been modified and fail to apply - or as I said, it could possibly try to apply what it can but you could wind up with a mix and match of different firmware versions due to the OTA failing eventually, which would need some manual work to recover from - or very worst, you might need to start over from scratch and lose everything.
When I'm on any rooted device, I go into Developer options and disable Automatic system updates. It's still possible you could get an update prompt if you manually check for an update, but it's not advised to use OTAs when rooted.
I've always been a practitioner on all devices of flashing the full new firmware updates and re-rooting, however, I know that at least with devices with dual system partitions like Google Pixels (as far as I'm aware, Samsung still hasn't adopted dual partitions yet), there have been ways to apply Magisk to a manually sideloaded OTA, although I've observed other users who do this and something inevitably goes wrong with the process from time to time.
Not that full firmware flashes are immune to things going wrong.
Edit: If you try an OTA on yours, by all means, let us know what happens.
Edit 2: Adding TWRP to the mix may, or may not, affect the viability of applying OTAs. I've hardly used TWRP on any device in the last five years, so I'm not sure if it's smart about some things and can take root into account, but since TWRP doesn't exist on the Tab S8 (I don't have any older Tab), it won't matter for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just attempted to OTA update on my Tab S7+ after making a backup, and it failed. When it rebooted to start applying the update, it booted into recovery to start flashing, but since I have TWRP installed, it booted to that instead, went straight to the main menu, and didn't apply the update. It's extremely ironic; my tablet says it's running unauthorized software and will no longer receive firmware updates, but it also says my device status is official and allows me to download and install updates if I check for them (it'll even mention there's an update available without having automatic download installed).
I rebooted to system, it said they the update failed, and prompted me to download the update again and try again. I can't tell if anything got affected since it seems like because the update failed, nothing got applied or changed. This makes me slightly less willing to try and OTA update on the Tab S8+. However, since the stock recovery is still in place (no TWRP yet), the update process would probably go a long smoother. Not to mention, if something was to go wrong, and I needed to flash patched firmware again, I could just flash HOME_CSC instead of the regular CSC so I can keep my data. There's no guarantee that will work, as a failed update could require my system to prompt me to factory data reset anyway, but it's definitely an option that's available.
I'll backup whatever I can before attempting this, and I'll post the results later.

Answer would be no, doing OTA requires bootloader to be locked. But since you rooted, then you have unlocked the bootloader. So if your tab s8+ has locked bootloader then OTA will pass without a problem.

Jake.S said:
Answer would be no, doing OTA requires bootloader to be locked. But since you rooted, then you have unlocked the bootloader. So if your tab s8+ has locked bootloader then OTA will pass without a problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? I thought having an unlocked bootloader would be a non-issue since you can flashing official and unofficial firmware with an unlocked bootloader. Not to mention that the recovery has remained unaffected, and stock recovery needs to be accessed to apply the update.

SavXL said:
Really? I thought having an unlocked bootloader would be a non-issue since you can flashing official and unofficial firmware with an unlocked bootloader. Not to mention that the recovery has remained unaffected, and stock recovery needs to be accessed to apply the update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
when unlocking bootloader you have to manually flash the stock firmware. Since OTA becomes unavailable when bootloader is unlocked. So if root is done in for example android 12 and you get a monthly patch then it will revoke the root since root usually modifies the OS files and gives you the root access sort off and flashing a update will write over those files and your root privileges will be removed.

Jake.S said:
when unlocking bootloader you have to manually flash the stock firmware. Since OTA becomes unavailable when bootloader is unlocked. So if root is done in for example android 12 and you get a monthly patch then it will revoke the root since root usually modifies the OS files and gives you the root access sort off and flashing a update will write over those files and your root privileges will be removed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huh. I thought that doing an OTA update wouldn't remove anything that was already a part of the system and would just just update whatever needed to be updated and called it a day. With the method of patching the firmware and flashing it, I assume root would just be a regular part of the system, and an OTA update wouldn't affect it. Odd...

SavXL said:
Huh. I thought that doing an OTA update wouldn't remove anything that was already a part of the system and would just just update whatever needed to be updated and called it a day. With the method of patching the firmware and flashing it, I assume root would just be a regular part of the system, and an OTA update wouldn't affect it. Odd...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is because your normal access is only admin not root. So it has almost full rights, but when you add root access it is mostlikely a modification that you have to do, either by a command or flashing a file. But updating the OS will revoke the root since method you used becomes unavailable for next update which is why it can reset your changes backwards so your root privileges becomes lost and your access is back to default as before. But I wouldn't touch bootloader since doing that also bricks KNOX so features for KNOX will become permanently disabled since it requires a working Knox chip to work, but since KNOX chip fuse becomes blown when bootloader is unlocked then feature like Samsung pass, samsung secret folder and such will no longer work.

Jake.S said:
That is because your normal access is only admin not root. So it has almost full rights, but when you add root access it is mostlikely a modification that you have to do, either by a command or flashing a file. But updating the OS will revoke the root since method you used becomes unavailable for next update which is why it can reset your changes backwards so your root privileges becomes lost and your access is back to default as before. But I wouldn't touch bootloader since doing that also bricks KNOX so features for KNOX will become permanently disabled since it requires a working Knox chip to work, but since KNOX chip fuse becomes blown when bootloader is unlocked then feature like Samsung pass, samsung secret folder and such will no longer work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turns out you were absolutely correct. I downloaded and attempted to install the update, it booted into the stock recovery and got to 25% before erroring out. It booted back into Android and said that the update failed. Thankfully, nothing ended up getting removed or corrupted, and I still have root access. Guess I gotta stick to finding the latest firmware and patching it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯