[Q] Jelly Bean OTA and rooted devices - AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III

n00b here, so apologies always preface my post. Ditched Apple and have come to the dark side
So, I have a a rooted stock image of 4.0.4 ICS and am very eager for the upcoming official release of Jelly Bean. I've gotten mixed answers from reading past posts, so I have a few questions
- Am I even able to receive OTA updates on my rooted device?
- If I OTA update on my rooted device, will it wipe it to a clean install?
- After the OTA upgrade, will it remain rooted?
- How stable are the JB ROMS already out there? I only ask because I need the safest path possible to this upgrade. Cannot afford any mess ups.
AT&T Samsung Galaxy S III
SAMSUNG-SGH-I747
Android 4.0.4
I747UCLH9
Any other suggestions or links to reading material would be appreciated. Thanks guys!

runawayhacker said:
n00b here, so apologies always preface my post. Ditched Apple and have come to the dark side
So, I have a a rooted stock image of 4.0.4 ICS and am very eager for the upcoming official release of Jelly Bean. I've gotten mixed answers from reading past posts, so I have a few questions
- Am I even able to receive OTA updates on my rooted device?
- If I OTA update on my rooted device, will it wipe it to a clean install?
- After the OTA upgrade, will it remain rooted?
- How stable are the JB ROMS already out there? I only ask because I need the safest path possible to this upgrade. Cannot afford any mess ups.
AT&T Samsung Galaxy S III
SAMSUNG-SGH-I747
Android 4.0.4
I747UCLH9
Any other suggestions or links to reading material would be appreciated. Thanks guys!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only one of your questions I can answer is the stability of available ROMs. And I must say that most of the ROMs you can find in the development sections are extremely reliable. Flashing them is easy to do and will introduce you to a entirely new side of android.
Galaxy S3 AOKP 4.1.2 JB.

CamFlawless said:
The only one of your questions I can answer is the stability of available ROMs. And I must say that most of the ROMs you can find in the development sections are extremely reliable. Flashing them is easy to do and will introduce you to a entirely new side of android.
Galaxy S3 AOKP 4.1.2 JB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I work in the IT field and consider myself fairly "well exposed" to tweaking/modding/hacking. I've done similar procedures on many other devices in the past, just not on devices I need to be stable. Let's say I flash a custom ROM. From then on, what are my options for upgrading in the future? I suppose it will have to be either un-root and flash stock or stay with the custom ROMs. In the end, (and this is where the community's opinion will help), I need to keep my device reliable, but would like to have the perks of a rooted device.
Thoughts?
P.S., Since you recommended custom ROMs, I'm assuming you have done this yourself. Did it wipe everything clean for you, or are you able to maintain your data through the upgrade?

I believe if you want to upgrade to an official update from a custom ROM you must unroot and convert back to stock via Odin. But honestly, the custom ROMs you'll find are farther advanced than what your provider will provide you with via updates. Now that I am rooted and running a custom ROM, I have no desire to ever go stock again.
Galaxy S3 AOKP 4.1.2 JB.

If you are rooted on the stock "official" image (mrRobinsons method) you will get the OTA but it will break your root once you install it. If you want to keep Root, you need an app like Voodoo's OTA Root Keeper: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.projectvoodoo.otarootkeeper

cloutogu being
I downgraded my S3 from LALH1 to LALE8 using the method and root-injected stock roms in the No Tripping Flash Counter thread. Afterwards, I decided to go back to LALH1 by accepting the OTA update. Bad move as it ended up hard bricking my phone -- even recovery/download mode was inaccessible.
I'm not sure what was the cause of this and now I'm a bit paranoid with my S3. I flashed all sorts of custom roms on my old S without issue, so it's not like I'm a rookie. I'm still really not sure if it was related to being rooted, or some other issue. Maybe I should have done a factory reset after downgrading. Maybe my phone would have survived if I didn't skip installing CWM.
In any case, I think there's at least some risk with upgrading OTA from a rooted firmware.

Related

[Q] Noob question regarding verizon jelly bean update

I am unlocked and rooted on my Galaxy Nexus but otherwise stock, no ROM. When the Jelly Bean update came through I thought that even though I was rooted, I'd still be able to take it, but when I tried to, I got errors. So thinking about this, here are my questions.
1) Obviously, I'm not stock because the update is signed. If I wanted to take the update (I'd like to be as close to stock as possible still being rooted) am I correct in that I'd have to relock bootloader and unroot?
2) I tried to look through the development threads to see if there was a stock rooted rom that I could flash through Clockwork, but I didn't see anything that was THAT close to stock. I'm wondering what suggestions people would have for me to get what I'm looking for.
3) If I'm completely off base and I should be able to take that update, I'd like to know if anyone knows why I'm getting errors. I tried flashing the update as a zip through clockwork, but I got the same error (sorry, didn't write down).
I messed around with my OG Droid quite a bit, rooted my Droid Inc and Droid Charge, and after messing around with the crap UI's that OEM's wanted to wrap around android, I just really want that stock experience. All suggestions are welcome, thanks in advance (sorry for the noobishness).
I think its recovery that has to be stock to receive OTA updates. As your trying to flash with CMW you have a custom recovery.
I believe you are manually able to flash the update.
MagicMiloX said:
[snip]
1)If I wanted to take the update (I'd like to be as close to stock as possible still being rooted) am I correct in that I'd have to relock bootloader and unroot?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not correct. Lock state of your bootloader, and even root, have no impact on you being able to apply an OTA update.
MagicMiloX said:
2) I tried to look through the development threads to see if there was a stock rooted rom that I could flash through Clockwork, but I didn't see anything that was THAT close to stock. I'm wondering what suggestions people would have for me to get what I'm looking for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you read the sticky in the General section that talks about returning to stock?
MagicMiloX said:
3) If I'm completely off base and I should be able to take that update, I'd like to know if anyone knows why I'm getting errors. I tried flashing the update as a zip through clockwork, but I got the same error (sorry, didn't write down).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you read the sticky in the General section that talks about OTA updates?

[Q]How to Undo Root/Custom ROM ?

Hello,
About a month ago I rooted and installed a custom JB ROM (Kangdroid I believe?) onto my AT&T Galaxy SIII with the custom recovery mod. Now that the official release of JB has come out from AT&T I want to return my phone to it's original factory state with no custom anything, and then update to the official JB release. I don't want to use a custom un-bloated ROM. Call me crazy but I really didn't want to root/mess with the phone in the first place but I really, really, really wanted Jelly Bean. I already have backed up my contacts since that is the only thing I really need to save from my phone at the moment. I can download all of my apps again, etc. I tried searching the forums but couldn't come up with a very clear answer on how to do this. I found it hard to figure out exactly what I needed to do, and since I did this so long ago, I pretty much forgot how to do all of the little things that made my first attempt at flashing/rooting successful. I guess my question is this: What software do I need and what are some links (if any) on this site to help me return the phone to it's original out-of-the box state so that I can update my OS with the Samsung Kies software. Thanks a lot for your help and I hope to hear from some of you soon. Sorry for noobing it up in here.
easterdev said:
Hello,
About a month ago I rooted and installed a custom JB ROM (Kangdroid I believe?) onto my AT&T Galaxy SIII with the custom recovery mod. Now that the official release of JB has come out from AT&T I want to return my phone to it's original factory state with no custom anything, and then update to the official JB release. I don't want to use a custom un-bloated ROM. Call me crazy but I really didn't want to root/mess with the phone in the first place but I really, really, really wanted Jelly Bean. I already have backed up my contacts since that is the only thing I really need to save from my phone at the moment. I can download all of my apps again, etc. I tried searching the forums but couldn't come up with a very clear answer on how to do this. I found it hard to figure out exactly what I needed to do, and since I did this so long ago, I pretty much forgot how to do all of the little things that made my first attempt at flashing/rooting successful. I guess my question is this: What software do I need and what are some links (if any) on this site to help me return the phone to it's original out-of-the box state so that I can update my OS with the Samsung Kies software. Thanks a lot for your help and I hope to hear from some of you soon. Sorry for noobing it up in here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The same way you rooted it with odin .. download the stock rom from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1968625
push it on with odin and that should revert your phone back to stock ..

[Q] Update stock Sprint GNEX to 4.2.1 from 4.1.1 keeping root

So been while since I've done much rom flashing. Had an EVO for 2+ years and tried lots of ROMS, but then got the sprint GNEX because I just wanted vanilla android without having to mess with ROMS as much. As such, I'm just running stock 4.1.1, with it rooted for a few apps and wifi tethering which I flashed after rooting. Looking to update to the new stock Sprint 4.2.1 firmware, keeping root and wifi tethering. Back on the EVO, every time there was a new firmare update, someone would post a "stock rooted" ROM (not that I used them), that didn't have anything done to it, but can't seem to find that with the latest Sprint GNEX update, only one that seems to come close has been fiddled with, deodexed, causing some issues. I'm also not used to flashing without my data being on a removable SD card. So I'm wondering, is there a way to just flash a rooted version of the Sprint firmware, keeping my data and wifi tethering (or by just flashing a new 4.2.1 wifi tethering patch), or can I use OTA rootkeeper, flash the OTA update, and restore root? I've got latest TWRP recovery btw, which it seems I would have to change back to stock recovery to flash the OTA update correct? Thanks for any direction anyone can provide
First off, im not sure about wifi tethering, but it is an option on gsm android settings. I would use OTA rootkeeper, but you need the stock recovery first to accept the ota. Did you check this thread? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1419170
bodh said:
First off, im not sure about wifi tethering, but it is an option on gsm android settings. I would use OTA rootkeeper, but you need the stock recovery first to accept the ota. Did you check this thread? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1419170
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks so much for pointing me in the right direction. Swear I tried to search other threads before asking but somehow missed that one, looks like it should tell me what I need. Think I was looking too much in the development forum for a full ROM to flash, and missed that thread in the general forum about just applying the update. Thanks again!!

update/unroot phone?

I have a galaxy s3 from sprint which I rooted many months ago and is currently running android 4.04, It is constantly asking me to update however every time I do it always fails. I've looked around the forums and from what I learned I believe that the only way to update is to unroot and update or to install a rom with jelly bean. I experimented with a few roms including CM10, AOKP and liquid smooth but all of these had problems with sending text messages where long messages would not send or even short messages were split into multiple messages. So unless anyone knows a fix to this I prefer to stick to the stock rom for now at least.
That being said I would like to update my phone to jelly bean. Does anyone know a way for me to do this? If unrooting is the only way does anyone know how I can unroot my phone? All of the post I've ran into are either old(don't trust really old post as methods tend to change as time pases) or don't give enough information aside from "install original firmware". If anyone could help that would be greatly appreciated. I have a mac computer so any methods that could be used with a mac would make things easier. Otherwise I could always run windows with bootcamp so not a big problem.
If it helps I rooted my phone using Odin and currently have CWM, its a sprint galaxy s3 running 4.04
Liquid smooth doesn't have that problem anymore
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app
luigid92 said:
I have a galaxy s3 from sprint which I rooted many months ago and is currently running android 4.04, It is constantly asking me to update however every time I do it always fails. I've looked around the forums and from what I learned I believe that the only way to update is to unroot and update or to install a rom with jelly bean. I experimented with a few roms including CM10, AOKP and liquid smooth but all of these had problems with sending text messages where long messages would not send or even short messages were split into multiple messages. So unless anyone knows a fix to this I prefer to stick to the stock rom for now at least.
That being said I would like to update my phone to jelly bean. Does anyone know a way for me to do this? If unrooting is the only way does anyone know how I can unroot my phone? All of the post I've ran into are either old(don't trust really old post as methods tend to change as time pases) or don't give enough information aside from "install original firmware". If anyone could help that would be greatly appreciated. I have a mac computer so any methods that could be used with a mac would make things easier. Otherwise I could always run windows with bootcamp so not a big problem.
If it helps I rooted my phone using Odin and currently have CWM, its a sprint galaxy s3 running 4.04
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In order to OTA update the phone you need to be on a stock rom with all the stock apps installed and have a the stock recovery installed. (not CWM).
You could try to just reflash the stock recovery (which is what I did.) You could also just flash the current stock rom in Odin, which may or may not cause you to lose data. Dig around for all the roms and the stock recovery in the development forum.
Two things:
1. Please search. This has been asked (insert large number here) times
2. Head over to freezas thread and flash the MB1 firmware update. Then find a rom that is updated to either MA4 and up (including MB1) and flash it. I would recommended The Peoples ROM or MOAR (Mother of All Roms) if you wanna stay on a nice stock rooted rom
But thats it and you're done. Fully updated to JB
CNexus said:
Two things:
1. Please search. This has been asked (insert large number here) times
2. Head over to freezas thread and flash the MB1 firmware update. Then find a rom that is updated to either MA4 and up (including MB1) and flash it. I would recommended The Peoples ROM or MOAR (Mother of All Roms) if you wanna stay on a nice stock rooted rom
But thats it and you're done. Fully updated to JB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't even need to flash all the firmware, could just flash a rooted deodexed or odexed mb1 rom and modem if you like, but it's not necessary.
☆SoA: Son's of Android™☆
I like to break stuff!

[Q] Newbie doing homework before flashing rom

I'm sure this has been asked many times before, but I just wanted to make absolutely sure I'm ready before I flash, so I don't brick my phone. I have been reading the forums for a few days now. I have an S3 (i747M) with Fido. I'm not totally sure which ROM to go with. From what I understand so far, I'm thinking StockMOD or Dandroid. I want a fairly minimalistic OS, latest version (4.3 vs 4.4?), so I can play the occasion game on it and get good idle battery life. I believe I have rooted my stock rom and I have disabled some of the bloat through the "Application Management" option under settings. Any advice on flashing? I have spent many years building, modding and generally tinkering with windows pcs but I haven't done anything with phones, android or linux. Any advice? Obviously do the backup of my current phone with the app mentioned on the related ROM installation page. I assume I can restore my phone back to this stock ROM is the new one fails? After the backup, do a full phone wipe and default restore. Then hook the phone to my PC via USB and use the related program to flash the phone? Thank you for any and all replies in advance. :good:
Kwijybow said:
I'm sure this has been asked many times before, but I just wanted to make absolutely sure I'm ready before I flash, so I don't brick my phone. I have been reading the forums for a few days now. I have an S3 (i747M) with Fido. I'm not totally sure which ROM to go with. From what I understand so far, I'm thinking StockMOD or Dandroid. I want a fairly minimalistic OS, latest version (4.3 vs 4.4?), so I can play the occasion game on it and get good idle battery life. I believe I have rooted my stock rom and I have disabled some of the bloat through the "Application Management" option under settings. Any advice on flashing? I have spent many years building, modding and generally tinkering with windows pcs but I haven't done anything with phones, android or linux. Any advice? Obviously do the backup of my current phone with the app mentioned on the related ROM installation page. I assume I can restore my phone back to this stock ROM is the new one fails? After the backup, do a full phone wipe and default restore. Then hook the phone to my PC via USB and use the related program to flash the phone? Thank you for any and all replies in advance. :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
in my opinion or anyone will say that 4.3 is the most stable right now, and 4.4 is only available for CM based roms.....Samsung Touchwiz will always be the last to update their devices to 4.4 while custom roms AOKP, SLIM BEAM, PAC ROM, BEAN STALK, CM, PARANOID, ETC they will always have nightlies on latest the Android version but will take sometime for stable roms to be released
1st before you think of flashing please research and know what you're getting into
2nd read all the info. ROOT your i747m with cf-auto root (i recommend it cuz its the simplest, easiest, safest way to root)
3rd install custom recovery there are two that i know of but am confident and comfortable with clockworkmod recovery....u can try TWRP
4th yu can either wish to stay stock touchwiz, 2types of stock
-one that comes from samsung all bloated and no tweaks and
-the one that is taken by devs debloated, modded, customized, xposed mod, minimalistic, faster and better.
--OR you can go completely Android vanilla stock, which has nothing but the normal google staff (ITS LIKE A NEXUS DEVICE from Google) you dont have any bloatware, or features/addons just plain stock
5th Once yu know the basic, the universe is yours, with Android comes endless customization and possibilities just like Microsoft Windows, Linux, ubuntu or even OSX
6th wish to become a DEV its your choice, wish to modify, play with the filesystem its your choice but without knowledge of what you're doing bricking is easy as just deleting a file yu think its not important
7th help the rest with android as you do with PC
PS am learning to code now but one thing at a time so am starting with Web design, plan to learn some computer languages, hacking, etc computer science :laugh: maybe yu can help me out
everything you need to know about what i said or root http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1725839
Thanks for the reply. It's been a while since I originally posted this. I decided to hold off on a custom ROM at that time but I find myself back again, still wanting to customize my phone (especially now that my contract is about to expire). I figure that if I do brick my phone beyond repair, I'll just get another phone anyways so not so worried about it now.
Anyways, one concern I have about flashing a custom ROM on my S3 is can I go backwards in Android versions? I can confirm that I am running the stock (Rogers / Fido) Android 4.4.2 which I believe is Kitkat? I am very interested in going either StockMOD or Dandroid, which as far as I can tell are 4.3 Jellybean? Can I do that?
Yes, you can run a 4.3 rom on your phone as long as you do not try to downgrade the bootloader.
You can go back to completely stock Rogers by using Odin to flash as stock kk rom from sammobile.com.
audit13 said:
Yes, you can run a 4.3 rom on your phone as long as you do not try to downgrade the bootloader.
You can go back to completely stock Rogers by using Odin to flash as stock kk rom from sammobile.com.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. Regarding the bootloader, the versions of Android I'm looking to install say they need the 4.3 bootloader. How can I check which bootloader I am running on my phone?
If you're phone is running stock Rogers kit kit, you have a kit kat bootloader which you can't downgrade.
If the rom needs a 4.3 bootloader and since you have a newer bootloader, you can probably load the rom.
Kwijybow said:
I'm not totally sure which ROM to go with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using the most recent build of the most popular ROM has it's advantages.
cm-12.1-20150807-NIGHTLY-d2att.zip
fast, light, stable, secure, supported

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