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Hi all,
So my Nexus 4 arrived today and I'm umming and ahhing as to root or not.
I've heard all the good things about doing it but I'm interested in peoples rooting nightmares. What's gone wrong? When have you wanted to throw your phone out the window?
Look forward to reading!
noahdev said:
Hi all,
So my Nexus 4 arrived today and I'm umming and ahhing as to root or not.
I've heard all the good things about doing it but I'm interested in peoples rooting nightmares. What's gone wrong? When have you wanted to throw your phone out the window?
Look forward to reading!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It really takes a tremendous effort to screw it up, it really does.
Cliff's Notes/summary, not an actual guide:
1. Learn to do it the old fashioned (and easiest way) by installing the drivers and using fastboot.
2. fastboot oem unlock
3. fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
4. flash your SU binaries zip
5. b00m!
CMNein said:
It really takes a tremendous effort to screw it up, it really does.
Cliff's Notes/summary, not an actual guide:
1. Learn to do it the old fashioned (and easiest way) by installing the drivers and using fastboot.
2. fastboot oem unlock
3. fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
4. flash your SU binaries zip
5. b00m!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In that case I'll lower my requirements. Anyone done it and thought 'You know what, I prefer the stock experience.'?
noahdev said:
In that case I'll lower my requirements. Anyone done it and thought 'You know what, I prefer the stock experience.'?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes actually. I thought rooting it was great and all, even went for custom kernels. The thing is, when you get all the updates that Google provides on a near instant basis, there is no need to root and rom your phone. Also, I feel like it doesn't provide too much extra for the experience. On a side note, when I had an HTC Sensation, I would root and rom just to get the newest and greatest from Google.
Your choice, but I like getting OTA's and don't run any SU apps.
Drebin 894 said:
Yes actually. I thought rooting it was great and all, even went for custom kernels. The thing is, when you get all the updates that Google provides on a near instant basis, there is no need to root and rom your phone. Also, I feel like it doesn't provide too much extra for the experience. On a side note, when I had an HTC Sensation, I would root and rom just to get the newest and greatest from Google.
Your choice, but I like getting OTA's and don't run any SU apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rooting means you are:
- able to make nandroid and Titanium Backups
- run a good custom kernel for color and sound control, better batterylife and performance and lower cpu temperatures
- install adblockers and other usefull apps.
If these aren`t improvements i don`t know what is and you might as well buy an iPhone for stock xperience, just my 2 cents.
BTW: @OP: rooting nightmares only occur with mis and badly informed users.
gee2012 said:
Rooting means you are:
- able to make nandroid and Titanium Backups
- run a good custom kernel for color and sound control, better batterylife and performance and lower cpu temperatures
- install adblockers and other usefull apps.
If these aren`t improvements i don`t know what is and you might as well buy an iPhone for stock xperience, just my 2 cents.
BTW: @OP: rooting nightmares only occur with mis and badly informed users.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but I feel like I don't need them on my phone. I don't need to back up apps as I am not switching roms, I like getting the OTA updates, and I don't care about ads on mobile because I never see them anyway, either through paid apps or little browsing.
Drebin 894 said:
Yes, but I feel like I don't need them on my phone. I don't need to back up apps as I am not switching roms, I like getting the OTA updates, and I don't care about ads on mobile because I never see them anyway, either through paid apps or little browsing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Too each his own bro
I fully agree to each his own but if you do not see the advantages and personalization rooti g gives you then most likelyyou are the type tthat is satisfied with what you get. For me T9 calling alone is worth it, adjusting scree colors, raising the sound level,showing actual dBm signal strength, removal of all apps I don't want that were preloaded, darker ui experience. Now if you never try this then you wont miss it but its not lime you can't root it then unroot if you are not happy.
Bottom line updates will come the same day here whether rooted or not and these updates can also come with goodies...
Edit: Also lets be honest in a forum of 100.000's of members and rooter you will find maybe a few hundred or so that may have an issue and most of them I guarantee you was because of them not following directions properly. Thats what makes for rooting nightmares. Remember even non rooters from time to time have to restore their phones for one crazy reason or another. Now you have to restore back to 1 year ago when you first got the phone...SMH
I am having some trouble rooting and puting a custom recovery on my new Nexus 4, I unlocked the bootloader, and flashed the custom recovery through fastboot, but its not sticking, I don't know whats wrong.
UNless youir getting deadlocks letting your phone charge overnight, I would stay on stock.
CM is great, but there are just always broken things and bugs that will eventaully piss you off when you want to do something.
noahdev said:
Hi all,
What's gone wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absolutely nothing, except for the very slight inconvenience of having to re-root or re-install TWRP after doing an Android operating system OTA update. Not only that, but I now have several "root only" apps that I needed, I have full access to the Linux command line programs which I use, and I am learning a lot about the Android OS lower level stuff. For me anyway, I really have no desire to install custom ROMS, as stock rooted Android does everything I want it to do.
There are stock based custom roms with CM type customization's... Again unless you have tried a stock customized rom with advancements you should not be judging. Also you don't have to use each cutsomization you can actually leave it stock and only use 1 or 2 custom items. Check out PSX 4.1 bone stock with a handful of customizations
There is really only one thing that annoys me about stock and that is the oversized Nav bottons. I just wished they made them smaller or gave us the otion to change the size. This is available on custom Roms and gives you more screen real-estate which definitley makes a difference.
That is one thing that keeps pulling me to custom Roms. I was running AOKP which seemed to run pretty good. I restored my phone back to stock because I thought I was having an issue with the notification light but then saw it just needed an app to make it work the way I was expecting it to.
So I have my phone rooted on stock 4.3 right now and I just wish I can make those Nav bars smaller! There are definitley cool features on some of the custom Roms though and it most certaintly can enhance your experience.
If ur not using the toolkit, then you should be.. If ur using and still manage to screw things, you should leave ur phone stock... The toolkits are already noob proof..
Connect phone to PC
Unlock boot loader
Root
Install recovery
Install ROM....
Its all 1 click each or some toolkits does it all in 1 click...
Rooted and running Paranoid Android + franco.kernel
my nightmare came from me going to fast... i missed a step and screwed up my phone...
i was able to get a stock image and reflash it, but it was a grueling 2 hours with a soft-bricked phone.
read all the stuff you can, and don't rush it.
Lucke said:
my nightmare came from me going to fast... i missed a step and screwed up my phone...
i was able to get a stock image and reflash it, but it was a grueling 2 hours with a soft-bricked phone.
read all the stuff you can, and don't rush it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please don't take this the wrong way... but you being the only person with a real horror story is quite comforting!
noahdev said:
Please don't take this the wrong way... but you being the only person with a real horror story is quite comforting!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no offense taken thats what i get for trying to root it while at work dealing with an Exchange upgrade
You can't really screw up a nexus device. It's not like Samsung where you hard flash the wrong version for the wrong phone and end up with a paperweight. If you mess up with nexus you can always return back
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4
My last nightmare with rooting was from htc desire hd, lots of bullcrap to be done, lots of s**t pre requisite..goldcard, emmc etc., ugh gives me headaches for days :/
Just use wugfresh toolkit and its a breeze
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4
Hey guys I've had the i537 ATT S4 Active since the day it came out. Rooted it the first day I saw that on here, and its got some version of clockwork mod on it.
As such, I can't just upgrade to the ATT 4.4.2 OTA. I'm not sure its worth pulling root, going back, and then coming forward just to have another ATT-bloat ROM on the phone. Is it worth it? I never use any of the ATT bloat stuff except for the wifi hotspot thing... but I could even do without that.
If not, what's a good 4.4 ROM that would work? It seems like all the ROMs are for the international S4A. I need it to be stable with no or very minimal bugs... camera, network connectivity, bluetooth, and audio are all very important to me.
Don't do it!
over2land said:
Hey guys I've had the i537 ATT S4 Active since the day it came out. Rooted it the first day I saw that on here, and its got some version of clockwork mod on it.
As such, I can't just upgrade to the ATT 4.4.2 OTA. I'm not sure its worth pulling root, going back, and then coming forward just to have another ATT-bloat ROM on the phone. Is it worth it? I never use any of the ATT bloat stuff except for the wifi hotspot thing... but I could even do without that.
If not, what's a good 4.4 ROM that would work? It seems like all the ROMs are for the international S4A. I need it to be stable with no or very minimal bugs... camera, network connectivity, bluetooth, and audio are all very important to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A little background, I'm a long time xda lurker, never had the guts (nor felt like I had the appropriate knowledge level) to ever come out of the shadows. I first encountered this Samsung bootloader nightmare when I promised my girlfriend I'd root and and flash CM10 to her GS3. Like an idiot I took the OTA beforehand, so I was able to root but heartbreakingly unable to flash CM or even CWM recovery. I cannot describe to you how crestfallen I was once I did the research and realized what I had locked myself out of (I have had nothing but positive experiences with CM and its relatives on my Pantech Burst and Samsung Infuse). Trust me don't do it.
I guess the main point I'm trying to make is that you can always flash a stock(-based) ROM, and even customize it to look exactly like a bloatware-ridden new phone, but once you take the OTA, that's it you're done. No cyanogen, no custom ROMS, no custom kernels, no CWM. I wish someone had given me this warning a year ago with my gf's GS3 (Verizon btw, this nonsense isn't AT&T-exclusive). I know I'm repeating myself, but even without the OTA, you can still give yourself an authentic KitKat experience, whereas if you take the OTA, you're completely removing almost all the phone's customizability. And in my humble opinion, that very customization was what makes (or made, for those of us stuck on locked bootloaders, pining for the good old days) the Android experience so superior.
I really hope this helped, I saw your post and didn't want to see someone else lose their phone.
-I'm new to actually posting so I don't really know how to do this the right way but my current phone is the GS4 Active, I have two retired Pantech Bursts (one still working, IMO the best no-name brand smartphone at least as of 2012), a retired Samsung Infuse, and I have experience with the GS3 as well, mentioned above
---------- Post added at 10:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 PM ----------
Hey guys I've had the i537 ATT S4 Active since the day it came out...and its got some version of clockwork mod on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't even know that was possible. If that's true, congratulations, everyone in this forum is insanely jealous of you
Thanks for the input mate. If I could find a decent 4.4 for the i537 I'd do that over the OTA one.
over2land said:
Thanks for the input mate. If I could find a decent 4.4 for the i537 I'd do that over the OTA one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The bootloader on the i537 is locked, you cannot install custom ROMs. Your only option is to use SafeStrap.
I want a perfect rom on my phone a stock lollipop rom and I can't do that without root. I mean have you seen this TouchWiz Oh My Lawd it's horrible, it eats so much ram battery life terrible and sometimes my phone overheats. If anyone could point me to a thread where they found the root or is working on the root and have it. I'll make a donation to the Mastermind who discovered it.
ImJusDatGuy said:
I want a perfect rom on my phone a stock lollipop rom and I can't do that without root. I mean have you seen this TouchWiz Oh My Lawd it's horrible, it eats so much ram battery life terrible and sometimes my phone overheats. If anyone could point me to a thread where they found the root or is working on the root and have it. I'll make a donation to the Mastermind who discovered it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you even read any threads yet?
Got my Droid Turbo recently and decided to upgrade to 5.1 to try it out a few days ago. I hate it-- performance/compatbility w/ apps is completely ruined and my battery drains faster. I also despise the UI of Lollipop.
Can't seem to figure out a way to get back to 4.4.4. Bootloader is locked, so I can't flash the factory 4.4.4 stock image.
Can't be done for now buddy. It is highly unlikely it ever will be.
bjoostema said:
Can't be done for now buddy. It is highly unlikely it ever will be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right! Even if your bootloader was unlocked you would get a bootloop (Tried this before)
Sent from my XT1526
P0PETIN said:
You're right! Even if your bootloader was unlocked...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the boot loader is unlocked, you can do what you want! If you know how to do.
P0PETIN said:
You're right! Even if your bootloader was unlocked you would get a bootloop (Tried this before)
Sent from my XT1526
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I fooled around for a little bit and found out there's a Material Dark theme for the keyboard (along w/ holo white and holo blue), so my major UI complaint is gone (white keyboard). Only other complaint regarding UI is the fact that I have to swipe and then touch the top of the screen to get to my settings.
I read up for a little bit, people are saying that factory resetting/wiping after installing the OTA update fixes performance/battery issues. Gonna try it out, thank you for the response.
aedando said:
I read up for a little bit, people are saying that factory resetting/wiping after installing the OTA update fixes performance/battery issues. Gonna try it out, thank you for the response.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This worked for me. My battery was a lot worse after updating. Especially while not using the phone. I did a factory reset and battery life is probably a little better than when it was on kk.
aedando said:
I fooled around for a little bit and found out there's a Material Dark theme for the keyboard (along w/ holo white and holo blue), so my major UI complaint is gone (white keyboard). Only other complaint regarding UI is the fact that I have to swipe and then touch the top of the screen to get to my settings.
I read up for a little bit, people are saying that factory resetting/wiping after installing the OTA update fixes performance/battery issues. Gonna try it out, thank you for the response.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Double finger swipe down gets the quick settings open.
Dude it's android the beautiful thing about that is its fully customizable wtf?
aedando said:
Got my Droid Turbo recently and decided to upgrade to 5.1 to try it out a few days ago. I hate it-- performance/compatbility w/ apps is completely ruined and my battery drains faster. I also despise the UI of Lollipop.
Can't seem to figure out a way to get back to 4.4.4. Bootloader is locked, so I can't flash the factory 4.4.4 stock image.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I should preface all my posts with: "this is just my thought process and not anything official / backed by research."
That said... 5.1 is very very new to the Turbo. So new, in fact that I highly doubt, boxed, in inventory, phones have been upgraded.
So lets say you have a warranty or insurance of some kind.. and your Turbo happens to... fall in a toilet.. run over by a garbage truck....eaten by a lion...
The replacement Turbo you would get, would, statistically, be running 4.4.4 and not 5.1
Yup.
It's funny how some people are dying to get 5.1 while others want to go back to 4.4.4
Regarding battery and performance, a lot of people have reported better battery life and performance after wiping cache, if not satisfied full wipe.
Regarding the rest, I agree with you, it takes a while to get used to, and without the ability to root and use nice customisation apps to tune it to the way you like it, this can be stressful. Despite that, soon enough you can get root on 5.1 and you should be able to tweak it using Xposed and the such.
I know exactly how you feel as I am currently on a 4.4.4 stock unrooted. Which sucks compared to my lovely rooted fully customised experience. I had to though to use my company corporate apps (MobileIron) which detects root and complains about almost everything unless stock. Stupid app. So for me I would swap my 4.4.4 unlocked with your 5.1 stock any time of the day because I can't modify it anyway.
Good luck mate. Try to calculate your risk, this is a pretty expensive device and I won't risk hard bricking it.
The 5.1 update I side-loaded doubled my battery life and makes it fly. Hasn't lagged one time. Using Nova Pro and DU Battery Saver. I'm a power user and it lasts all day and late into the morning.
Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
Kiwironic said:
Despite that, soon enough you can get root on 5.1 and you should be able to tweak it using Xposed and the such.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not trying to be all negative, but this isn't exactly correct. There is no guarantee 5.1 users will ever see root. With the Turbo soon(ish) to hit it's first birthday, (for what I've seen) developers tend to go for the latest/greatest/newest challenge (IE: the latest phone to tweak with). Everyday there is less and less appeal to root the Turbo as everyday there are less and less Turbo users. (upgrades and whatnot)
ntxct said:
Not trying to be all negative, but this isn't exactly correct. There is no guarantee 5.1 users will ever see root. With the Turbo soon(ish) to hit it's first birthday, (for what I've seen) developers tend to go for the latest/greatest/newest challenge (IE: the latest phone to tweak with). Everyday there is less and less appeal to root the Turbo as everyday there are less and less Turbo users. (upgrades and whatnot)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We knew this would happen when we choose the Turbo over the Moto X, the turbo has terrible support because it is not a mainstreamer. We have to live with the risks and work with the challenges. I am not considering root, but I am confident that's it is going to happen, the same problem was facing unlocking the droid turbo and rooting it, and even though it was very late but it did happen. It's only a matter of time.
I have learned my lesson from this and I am sticking with the more supported devices despite all the extras. Moto X 2015 is my next device if it ends up being half as decent as the rumours.
I never experienced battery drains before (Only when I overclocked) but either way I just use Greenify to manage battery life and trust me it works and if the bootloader is unlocked it may depend on the device your trying to downgrade. In my experience I tried to downgrade a S5 T-Mobile using Odin using official ROM from samsung and got the phone into a bootloop until I downloaded lollipop (Latest version) and it stopped but I hope you get a work around this.
Cheers!!
ntxct said:
Not trying to be all negative, but this isn't exactly correct. There is no guarantee 5.1 users will ever see root. With the Turbo soon(ish) to hit it's first birthday, (for what I've seen) developers tend to go for the latest/greatest/newest challenge (IE: the latest phone to tweak with). Everyday there is less and less appeal to root the Turbo as everyday there are less and less Turbo users. (upgrades and whatnot)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am running my Moto E 2015 with 5.1.1 rooted and xposed framework
P0PETIN said:
I am running my Moto E 2015 with 5.1.1 rooted and xposed framework
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Click to collapse
Right, sorry, I should've been more specific... "there's no guarantee Verizon Droid Turbo 5.1 users"
Kiwironic said:
It's funny how some people are dying to get 5.1 while others want to go back to 4.4.4
Regarding battery and performance, a lot of people have reported better battery life and performance after wiping cache, if not satisfied full wipe.
Regarding the rest, I agree with you, it takes a while to get used to, and without the ability to root and use nice customisation apps to tune it to the way you like it, this can be stressful. Despite that, soon enough you can get root on 5.1 and you should be able to tweak it using Xposed and the such.
I know exactly how you feel as I am currently on a 4.4.4 stock unrooted. Which sucks compared to my lovely rooted fully customised experience. I had to though to use my company corporate apps (MobileIron) which detects root and complains about almost everything unless stock. Stupid app. So for me I would swap my 4.4.4 unlocked with your 5.1 stock any time of the day because I can't modify it anyway.
Good luck mate. Try to calculate your risk, this is a pretty expensive device and I won't risk hard bricking it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm just going to wait until there's an established way to get back to 4.4.4. If there isn't, then too bad for me then
Also, I cleared cleared my cache data and now everything's running amazing and using less battery. What an odd fix.
aedando said:
I'm just going to wait until there's an established way to get back to 4.4.4. If there isn't, then too bad for me then
Also, I cleared cleared my cache data and now everything's running amazing and using less battery. What an odd fix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only way to do that is a bootloader unlock. You may be waiting forever.
yes you can downgrade, only if you took the ota i might write a tutorial about it
Using mofo, I can freely upgrade and downgrade between 5.1 and 4.4.4. Those who took the OTA, well, we told you so.
Wow, my head is about to explode after the last hour reading different threads on here. I have some experience rooting and using Odin if needed but not sure where to begin. All I want is a less bloated rom of lollipop and runs real smooth. The stock has way too much junk I don't want. Unfortunately I got excited for a min when I saw the dark note 5 rom port but I guess that's not for at&t version because of the locked bootloader. So I looked at a few roms on here and some seem decent enough but not sure which ones I want. Like I said, I want closest thing to stock Android as possible but with the Samsung s pen features also. Also it seems to me I have to downgrade to NC2 and then do the recovery and install the roms from there?
Alot of work coming from a guy who is used to nexus and oneplus one type phones. ..
newtonfb said:
Wow, my head is about to explode after the last hour reading different threads on here. I have some experience rooting and using Odin if needed but not sure where to begin. All I want is a less bloated rom of lollipop and runs real smooth. The stock has way too much junk I don't want. Unfortunately I got excited for a min when I saw the dark note 5 rom port but I guess that's not for at&t version because of the locked bootloader. So I looked at a few roms on here and some seem decent enough but not sure which ones I want. Like I said, I want closest thing to stock Android as possible but with the Samsung s pen features also. Also it seems to me I have to downgrade to NC2 and then do the recovery and install the roms from there?
Alot of work coming from a guy who is used to nexus and oneplus one type phones. ..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it is a bit more complicated getting things done with this device than some others, unfortunately it seems that is the way a lot of device mfg's are headed.
Once you get the method down it isn't all that difficult to get a ROM installed.
There are 2 ROMS that work really well for me
I'm currently running, and have been for a few weeks now is a S6 Edge port from Carl1961 located HERE
The other is a Darkloard Note 4 port from sanguinevn located HERE
Not that the other few we have aren't good, it's just that these 2 give me best battery/functionality combo
Carl had just reminded me that we are currently faced with a problem that 5.1 and up is a problem for us since we have no bootloader, so we're a bit stuck on how far our fine dev's can take us.
kangi26 said:
Yeah, it is a bit more complicated getting things done with this device than some others, unfortunately it seems that is the way a lot of device mfg's are headed.
Once you get the method down it isn't all that difficult to get a ROM installed.
There are 2 ROMS that work really well for me
I'm currently running, and have been for a few weeks now is a S6 Edge port from Carl1961 located HERE
The other is a Darkloard Note 4 port from sanguinevn located HERE
Not that the other few we have aren't good, it's just that these 2 give me best battery/functionality combo
Carl had just reminded me that we are currently faced with a problem that 5.1 and up is a problem for us since we have no bootloader, so we're a bit stuck on how far our fine dev's can take us.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. How do I root the 5.0 update? Is there a walk thru guide anywhere? I can't find one.
Also is there a big performance difference between this and stock? I disabled some of the stock apps but in still curious about the s6 rom you talked about