Database Develop

Question about ROOT access?

I figured, I would get the best response here... If you ROOT an Android phone, will downloading OTA updates through your phone brick it? I read an article about the new OTA for the EVO and it will brick rooted devices.

Misinformation. It would brick it if you applied it twice in sequence, not if you were rooted. You need the stock recovery to apply updates anyway, if you do get one it will not harm the phone because it can't be applied.

In the thread when the final OTA was coming out, lots of people that were rooted, said they installed it, it worked fine, but they lost root. So then they have to obtain root again.
So, I'd assume it would work fine if everything else was stock... you just might loose root.

So your saying, that if I were to install an OTA update through a rooted Android device running stock firmware, it would go through successfully without bricking it. But, if I ran the update a second time it would brick it. Correct?

If you're on a rooted stock rom, assuming you haven't flashed a custom recovery, the phone's recovery utility will not allow you to flash an OTA update because of a signature mismatch. I'm not sure what happened with the evo, but I don't believe it can happen with the nexus.

Okay, thanks? But I would still like some more input on this situation.

Pay attention
PurpleLlamaLover said:
Okay, thanks? But I would still like some more input on this situation.
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If your not rooted you can still flash OTA update leaks, there are plenty out there. If you want custom roms then you have to root. The stock recovery only flashes stock updates, not rooted updates. If your not getting it by reading the forums, then I suggest you stay on stock, and wait for OTA update.

efishta said:
If you're on a rooted stock rom, assuming you haven't flashed a custom recovery, the phone's recovery utility will not allow you to flash an OTA update because of a signature mismatch. I'm not sure what happened with the evo, but I don't believe it can happen with the nexus.
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No, this only happens with this specific update with the EVO.

Alright, great! Thanks guys. So since I believe the nexus one already got the offical OTA, did any of you lose ROOT access?

You WILL loose root when you update from an OTA update.

I had a rooted FRF50 and went to the FRF83 update and lost root/custom recovery, everything else was fine though.

I ask that you all forgiveth the newb nature of my question in advance, but if my phone has been rooted, and is currently running FRF50, is there anything I can do to the phone to have it automatically update using OTA? I ask because I received the notice for the OTA update the other day, but being rooted, got a signature mismatch error. (The only reason my phone is rooted is bc I bought it used that way-I wish I could've had it bone stock instead!) I know I can somehow do a manual update, but I'm trying to figure out for further future OTA updates if there's a way that I can have my phone simply automatically apply them.

Well, first off, thanks for hijacking.... AND, I have been doing a bunch of research. You should find the official build of froyo (FRF85B correct?) and manually update it. Just use it unrooted and it'll be easier when an OTA update comes along

Updating after root

Forgive me if this has been asked before. I did search, but I couldn't seem to find an answer to this.
I have a dev edition model. I really want to root, but have been holding off because there are bugs with the current build of Lollipop and I'm kind of hoping Moto will release a 5.02 update soon to kill the memory leak and other issues. That being said, I have really been itching for root.
If I did root, what would I have to do to this phone to update it to the new version? Would I have to completely return to stock and wipe? Or could I ADB sideload? Seems like I was reading that you can't update at all when you're rooted, even if you disable root.
Without any idea how much longer it'll be before the next update, I'm finding it harder and harder to hold off on root, but I don't want to go through hell to get it back to stock and update it.
Thanks for any help and sorry if this has already been asked.

From what I understand, root is fine. It is installing a custom recovery that will stop you from getting the OTA. You can very easily undo root. As a matter if fact, you can pretty easily reinstall the stock recovery also.

diggitydogg said:
From what I understand, root is fine. It is installing a custom recovery that will stop you from getting the OTA. You can very easily undo root. As a matter if fact, you can pretty easily reinstall the stock recovery also.
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Thanks for the reply.
Most of the time, that's true. I have updated a lot of phones by simply unrooting, applying the update, and rooting again, or using ADB sideload and then just rooting. But from what I have been reading about the Moto X 2014, you have to completely restore it back to stock before doing anything, even if you just use the temp boot method to root.
Is that wrong? I can't seem to find any info that confirms either way.

I've installed custom recovery, how can I reverse it and install the original recovery for update?

One advantage of root is you'll have Titanium Backup, so even if you do have to do a full wipe before applying the update, you could just update it and restore everything back quickly using TiBu. With lollipop, apparently the update file checks for the entire system checksum as a whole instead of each file so any slight modification to the system will mostly require pure stock and this is the same even with the nexus. So yeah, you most likely have to wipe your device before updating. I'd say, wait till Xposed for Lollipop is out, its almost there, once it comes out go ahead and root it, it'll at least be worth the hassle then

If you're rooted with lollipop and want to take an OTA update you can flash stock recovery and the stock system image. At that point you should still have all apps/data and be able to take a OTA update. The recovery and system files should be the exact version you already have and of course anytime you flash realize you could lose data!

Steve-x said:
If you're rooted with lollipop and want to take an OTA update you can flash stock recovery and the stock system image. At that point you should still have all apps/data and be able to take a OTA update. The recovery and system files should be the exact version you already have and of course anytime you flash realize you could lose data!
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Right. All you need to do is flash the stock /system partition and also the recovery if you replaced it. I don't know why everyone's talking about having to wipe the entire phone with the all the stock images.

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!
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.

Noob needs help with XT1096 on Verizon network w/ TWRP and keeps getting OTA prompt

Since there are not too many stable ROMs available on the XT1096 that support CDMA (I am using Verizon's network). I decided I would unlock my bootloader, flash TWRP and root the stock firmware. Well, the past few days I guess I did not update my phone all the way before doing this since I just got it not even a week ago and keep getting prompts to install an OTA. This will obviously not work with TWRP and when I flashed TWRP I selected to modify the system so the stock firmware would not rewrite recovery on boot. This has become a complete pain in the ass for me. Accidently I selected to install the OTA since it is always in my notifications and when it happened it would obviously fail in TWRP but then it would boot back into the ROM and then power cycle back into TWRP. The only way to stop it was to do a factory reset which is not what I would like to do every time I accidently select to install this OTA. So my questions to you awesome people who know more about this device are. 1. is there a way I can enable the to option to where I will always have a stock recovery and then I can just fastboot boot into TWRP if needed? Or is there another way where I can just possibly stop this OTA all together even though the prompt already says it's downloaded and waiting for me to hit install. Like can I just go into rootexplorrer and delete or modify a few system files that'll stop the phone for looking for OTAs? I don't reallyl care about the OTA since it's obviously not 6.0 since VZW got boned on that one. Looks like it's just some security patches.
I'm sure this is probably a really stupid and simple question, so I apologize in advance. But thank you SO MUCH to anyone who decides to help me out. I will appreciate it GREATLY!!!

aeb401 said:
Since there are not too many stable ROMs available on the XT1096 that support CDMA (I am using Verizon's network). I decided I would unlock my bootloader, flash TWRP and root the stock firmware. Well, the past few days I guess I did not update my phone all the way before doing this since I just got it not even a week ago and keep getting prompts to install an OTA. This will obviously not work with TWRP and when I flashed TWRP I selected to modify the system so the stock firmware would not rewrite recovery on boot. This has become a complete pain in the ass for me. Accidently I selected to install the OTA since it is always in my notifications and when it happened it would obviously fail in TWRP but then it would boot back into the ROM and then power cycle back into TWRP. The only way to stop it was to do a factory reset which is not what I would like to do every time I accidently select to install this OTA. So my questions to you awesome people who know more about this device are. 1. is there a way I can enable the to option to where I will always have a stock recovery and then I can just fastboot boot into TWRP if needed? Or is there another way where I can just possibly stop this OTA all together even though the prompt already says it's downloaded and waiting for me to hit install. Like can I just go into rootexplorrer and delete or modify a few system files that'll stop the phone for looking for OTAs? I don't reallyl care about the OTA since it's obviously not 6.0 since VZW got boned on that one. Looks like it's just some security patches.
I'm sure this is probably a really stupid and simple question, so I apologize in advance. But thank you SO MUCH to anyone who decides to help me out. I will appreciate it GREATLY!!!
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Try using your favorite applications manager for root and freeze MotorolaOTA. This will prevent the update from being downloaded and you won't get messages about installing the OTA update.

Updating without OTA

The Razer website doesn't have factory images available STILL for the September update. I'm not interested in going back to stock, taking the update, and hoping root will still work. In the past, these firmware images seem like they were available a week after release of the OTA.
Is there another way for me to update on this device via flashing or fastboot, maintaining root and my data, or do I just keep waiting for firmware images here:
https://developer.razer.com/razer-phone-dev-tools/factory-images/

Quantumrabbit said:
The Razer website doesn't have factory images available STILL for the September update. I'm not interested in going back to stock, taking the update, and hoping root will still work. In the past, these firmware images seem like they were available a week after release of the OTA.
Is there another way for me to update on this device via flashing or fastboot, maintaining root and my data, or do I just keep waiting for firmware images here:
https://developer.razer.com/razer-phone-dev-tools/factory-images/
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You may be waiting a while. If you're already rooted why not back everything up with something like Titanium backup and just flash latest firmware take the update, root, and then restore everything. I've done it so many times. This phone is so developer friendly I can't understand why there isn't more development....sad actually

JDBarlow said:
You may be waiting a while. If you're already rooted why not back everything up with something like Titanium backup and just flash latest firmware take the update, root, and then restore everything. I've done it so many times. This phone is so developer friendly I can't understand why there isn't more development....sad actually
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The process is so much easier just to fastboot flash all the images.
I'm actually back on my Essential Phone PH-1 now because the 2+ year old phone got Answered 10 day of release and has been updated to October security updates. I don't know that I can live with the pain of manual backups and restores when basic flash updates should be available... As to that the pathetic manufacturer support from Razer... Not an attractive daily use device for me.