Sending my S3 back to Samsung, but it was rooted. - AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III

My phone is under warranty so I''m shipping it back for repair to Samsung. The problem is that it was rooted. But I reset the flash counter with Triangle Away, and restored to stock unrooted. Is there anyway to tell I was rooted now? I don't want to get my device back with a note saying I voided my warranty.
Thanks!

No they wont care or know it was rooted or that you caused the problem. I sent my Samsung galaxy s2 skyrocket because it was bricked and the flash count was I think 10 and they didn't care and still fixed it so don't worry they will still repair it.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium

It depends on who is dealing with your phone. Most of them do not care, but I would factory reset it to rid the modified status under "about phone/status" if it is there just to be on the safe side.

Related

Unroot before repair??

So I have been having the problem with the earpiece not working. I have tried all the headset toggle widgets, hard reset, wipe, etc. Nothing is working. Its a shame... I love this phone and even being without it for 7 or so days is going to kill me.
Question though, it is going back to Samsung for repair...should I even worry about unrooting it? I'm not aware of how they react to stuff like this nowadays. Has anyone sent theirs in for repair rooted?
Thanks for the input!
I sent my old nexus s rooted, cwm installed and running a wrong version of the ROM. They sent my nexus only with unlocked bootloader. So I guess you'll be fine, but I still recommend unrooting just incase they notice that your rooted
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
I send mine in but it was so borked that they wouldn't have been able to see anything, let alone confirm I had it rooted..
Check the tool kit at the stickies in Development, you can easily flash a stock image before sending it in.
Just flash the stock images. Takes 15min and it takes out all chances that they'll get on you for being rooted. You're gonna want to ge rid of all of your info on the device anyways.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1626895
in Hungary we have to return it to full stock as warranty is void since bootloader is unlocked.

Can Samsung remotely find out if you've rooted?

I was wondering is there anyway Samsung could register your device as rooted when you try to update your rooted stock ROM and it says your phone is modified? I got curious as a lot of people who brought in their Note 2 for repairs due to SDS got turned away or charged stating that they've damaged it by rooting and installing custom ROMs even though the binary is 0 and the phone is running Stock.
Sent from the Rabbit Hole
bushako said:
I was wondering is there anyway Samsung could register your device as rooted when you try to update your rooted stock ROM and it says your phone is modified? I got curious as a lot of people who brought in their Note 2 for repairs due to SDS got turned away or charged stating that they've damaged it by rooting and installing custom ROMs even though the binary is 0 and the phone is running Stock.
Sent from the Rabbit Hole
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting.I'd like to know that too.
And also narration of experiences who have taken their phone for repair under warranty and refused for xyz reason.

New Phone has root, don't want root

I got my Galaxy s4 as an insurance replacement from eSecuritel. Originally I had the S3 from my carrier and it didn't have this issue. I found out the phone had root from a backup app I had that detected it. I downloaded a root checker and verified I have root access. I had an issue with the phone and was told to go into recovery mode. There I found the original recovery mode had been replaced by one from Team Win, so I think I have a custom rom too? My backup app won't work because I must be missing something that didn't get put on from whoever did this. Mybackup pro is what I use. It won't reinstall my apps. Long story.
Basically I want to unroot and go back to a stock rom. I don't do this often enough to completely know what I am doing. I have rooted a phone before. My acer iconia tablet is rooted and has a custom rom. When I do this I will lose my ability to back up app data with mybackup pro. But samsung will support my phone.
The odd thing is, this happened with two different brand new, unopened Galaxy S4s. How can this be? Does the insurance company get them from some strange manufacturing facility? I chatted with Samsung and the representative knows nothing about Samsung doing this.
Download stock 4.3 firmware and then flash through Odin. That'll get you back to fully stock
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
Yeah it's no big deal . Like the other person said, just flash back to stock using odin. Here's a link to the stock ROM if you haven't done it already. Just search stock galaxy s4 rom on google and it should be on the galaxyroot page
Hope that helped
If you are on 4.2.2 or (anything below 4.3), if you want completely stock, get TriangleAway to remove the flash counter (i.e., how many times the phone has had a custom rom flashed), then Odin flash the stock. This will show that you never touched your phone and it will be completely factory new. :good: But if you don't care about the flash counter (because your warranty is up or something), then you can just Odin flash the stock firmware and be good to go. :highfive:
xdapowerapps said:
If you are on 4.2.2 or (anything below 4.3), if you want completely stock, get TriangleAway to remove the flash counter (i.e., how many times the phone has had a custom rom flashed), then Odin flash the stock. This will show that you never touched your phone and it will be completely factory new. :good: But if you don't care about the flash counter (because your warranty is up or something), then you can just Odin flash the stock firmware and be good to go. :highfive:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was just reading about the flash counter before I saw this reply. I do care because my phone was brand new when I received it a few days ago. I don't know how the heck I can have a brand new phone that is already rooted with a possible custom rom. Until a few minutes ago, I didn't know Samsung had such a counter on devices now.
I am a bit of a noob still despite having a little experience with this. I don't know which is the best stock rom (I have found a few). I have downloaded Odin. I have no clue what TriangleAway is.
I have been in contact with the place I got my phone from to find out what the heck happened. I shouldn't have to go through all this for a brand new phone. I doubt they can replace it with one that hasn't had this happen because they wont know which boxes have the affected phones as the boxes are unopened.
I know there are guides for this. I found them, closed the stupid window and now I can't find them again. I tried going through my history but there is so much in there it is hard to find.
alovingmommyof3 said:
I was just reading about the flash counter before I saw this reply. I do care because my phone was brand new when I received it a few days ago. I don't know how the heck I can have a brand new phone that is already rooted with a possible custom rom. Until a few minutes ago, I didn't know Samsung had such a counter on devices now.
I am a bit of a noob still despite having a little experience with this. I don't know which is the best stock rom (I have found a few). I have downloaded Odin. I have no clue what TriangleAway is.
I have been in contact with the place I got my phone from to find out what the heck happened. I shouldn't have to go through all this for a brand new phone. I doubt they can replace it with one that hasn't had this happen because they wont know which boxes have the affected phones as the boxes are unopened.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Phones do not come pre-rooted with modified roms from the manufacturer. Contact whoever you got it from and request for a refund or exchange. TriangleAway is a app by Chainfire that resets a counter. This counter was used by Samsung to see if you messed with your ROM. Every time you flashed a ROM, your counter would go up by one. So if you flashed 4 roms, your counter will say "Flash counter: 4." TriangleAway resets that 0 so no one knows.
As far as best stock rom... well, they are stock. What do you mean best? lol. If you want 100% stock rom, then that is what you get. There are no variations. We can start talking about "best" only when you download ROMs that are modified by devs.
If you are on 4.2.2, here is the 100% STOCK ROM: http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/3/?download=14362
If you are on 4.3, or if you want to upgrade to 4.3, here is the 100% STOCK ROM: http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/3/?download=22280
xdapowerapps said:
Phones do not come pre-rooted with modified roms from the manufacturer. Contact whoever you got it from and request for a refund or exchange. TriangleAway is a app by Chainfire that resets a counter. This counter was used by Samsung to see if you messed with your ROM. Every time you flashed a ROM, your counter would go up by one. So if you flashed 4 roms, your counter will say "Flash counter: 4." TriangleAway resets that 0 so no one knows.
As far as best stock rom... well, they are stock. What do you mean best? lol. If you want 100% stock rom, then that is what you get. There are no variations. We can start talking about "best" only when you download ROMs that are modified by devs.
If you are on 4.2.2, here is the 100% STOCK ROM: http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/3/?download=14362
If you are on 4.3, or if you want to upgrade to 4.3, here is the 100% STOCK ROM: http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/3/?download=22280
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jeez I feel dumb. I got Triangle Away. It asked me if I wanted to grant it rights because I don't have super user access. I tapped ok and it closed.
Sooo your phone wasn't rooted all this time? Haha :x
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
joemon871 said:
Sooo your phone wasn't rooted all this time? Haha :x
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then why does my backup pro and root checkers say I do? And why is there a team win custom recovery mode when I restart in recovery mode? I don't know if it matters but I can also go into download mode.
alovingmommyof3 said:
Then why does my backup pro and root checkers say I do? And why is there a team win custom recovery mode when I restart in recovery mode? I don't know if it matters but I can also go into download mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have a custom recovery (TWRP). You probably have root (which has nothing to do with recovery) but you didn't give TA access.

[Q] Question surrounding restoring factory and downloading official 4.3 update - KNOX

Hello!
Hope all is well. First I wanted to say i'm sorry if this is a duplicate - I searched and saw similar questions, but not exactly the same as mine .
I own a T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S4 M919 and I had rooted it and installed a custom rom. Im having hardware problems and need to return it for repairs, so I reflashed the stock system and recovery, used triangle away to remove the binary counter, and hard reset the phone. In my download mode, my phones reads "Current Binary: Samsung Official" and "System Status: Official", as well as reads official on the device status in android so all went well.
My question is this - I got notification of a push update that is going to install Android 4.3, and apparently this "KNOX" software that I do no seem to currently have. My concern with this is that i'm reading that there is a flag with this KNOX software that is easily tripped, and once done, the download mode reads "KNOX WARRANTY VOID 0x1", which therefore voids warranties. Since I was able to get everything back to completely normal, I dont want to run any more risks since my phone really needs repairs very badly. Should I bypass this update? Though my phone is 100% official now, if I do the update, will the KNOX software catch that I had rooted/custom rom'd the phone in the past and trigger the flag automatically, or do you first have to have the update installed BEFORE you try to root it for the flag to trip? Everything is 100% stock now so when I download the update, I don't think there is anything present that would trigger anything, but I don't even have this "KNOX WARRANTY VOID" line in my download mode yet so I am wondering if I am just better off being safe than sorry?
Thanks!
It won't be tripped until you trip it so you will be OK if you update it to 4.3, But I highly advice against doing so.. Just leave it as is, and return it like that
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
xgreenlanternox said:
Hello!
Hope all is well. First I wanted to say i'm sorry if this is a duplicate - I searched and saw similar questions, but not exactly the same as mine .
I own a T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S4 M919 and I had rooted it and installed a custom rom. Im having hardware problems and need to return it for repairs, so I reflashed the stock system and recovery, used triangle away to remove the binary counter, and hard reset the phone. In my download mode, my phones reads "Current Binary: Samsung Official" and "System Status: Official", as well as reads official on the device status in android so all went well.
My question is this - I got notification of a push update that is going to install Android 4.3, and apparently this "KNOX" software that I do no seem to currently have. My concern with this is that i'm reading that there is a flag with this KNOX software that is easily tripped, and once done, the download mode reads "KNOX WARRANTY VOID 0x1", which therefore voids warranties. Since I was able to get everything back to completely normal, I dont want to run any more risks since my phone really needs repairs very badly. Should I bypass this update? Though my phone is 100% official now, if I do the update, will the KNOX software catch that I had rooted/custom rom'd the phone in the past and trigger the flag automatically, or do you first have to have the update installed BEFORE you try to root it for the flag to trip? Everything is 100% stock now so when I download the update, I don't think there is anything present that would trigger anything, but I don't even have this "KNOX WARRANTY VOID" line in my download mode yet so I am wondering if I am just better off being safe than sorry?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are having hardware issues and are returning the phone and
your phone is 100% stock without KNOX right now then why in
the world would you want to take chances with OTA updates or
any other updates.
If it was me I would have already taken/shipped the phone back for
repair or exchange instead of worrying about OTA updates.
Good luck!
Thanks for the advice! Download mode would be the only location of that "KNOX WARRANTY VOID" flag right? If it's not there, then as long as it states both Samsung Official and Official in download mode I should be good ya think?
Thanks!
Yes.. It will also show a message at boot
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
serio22 said:
Yes.. It will also show a message at boot
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome yep - no boot message I see either - boots just like it did the day I bought it. So I am pretty sure I have the firmware before KNOX came out - It has been rooted since the summer so I probably luckily bypassed the official update with KNOX
Thanks to all for your information! Im gonna stay away from the new firmware just to be safe until i get the phone back from warranty!
Hmm - things got even more interesting. So it seems when i reset everything back to stock as mentioned above, the screen flickering issues have now gone away and I am not seeming to replicate them in any way at all. Does this sound familiar to anyone? I was using a version of Wanamlite ROM before i reset everything. I am wondering if it was just the ROM causing the screen flicker and not a hardware defect.
xgreenlanternox said:
Hmm - things got even more interesting. So it seems when i reset everything back to stock as mentioned above, the screen flickering issues have now gone away and I am not seeming to replicate them in any way at all. Does this sound familiar to anyone? I was using a version of Wanamlite ROM before i reset everything. I am wondering if it was just the ROM causing the screen flicker and not a hardware defect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It could have been
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk

[Q] warranty after root( what about knox)

So I know how to root and unroot and how to use triangle free but I heared about knox software and they say it can be tripped
So I unroot &uninstall root software, use triangle and put stock firmware from sam firmware website back on.
Is my warranty back on at this point or they can check bootloader and knox to find out that I have rooted before.
If its not back tell me what else to do.
Samsung galaxy tab s 10.5. SM-T800
Tripping knox isn't reversibel.
But usually that doesn't matter in warranty cases.
If you have a defective device and have knox tripped, you should be fine as it wasnt your fault. Someone( xda user formeriphoney) had a faulty power button, then later and faulty chip or something cuasing it not to turn on. He get it all replaced by samsung and he was even running cm11 when he sent it to him.
Basically you cant untrip knox. And its a 50/50 chance of samsung servicing it because of an defective part.
DUHAsianSKILLZ said:
If you have a defective device and have knox tripped, you should be fine as it wasnt your fault. Someone( xda user formeriphoney) had a faulty power button, then later and faulty chip or something cuasing it not to turn on. He get it all replaced by samsung and he was even running cm11 when he sent it to him.
Basically you cant untrip knox. And its a 50/50 chance of samsung servicing it because of an defective part.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So whats the point of unrooting and using triangle free if they can figure out that you rooted your device from checking knox records?
Anyway on my new tablet I cant even find knox maybe it's not protected by knox???. (Galaxy s4 phone has it and its visible)
Thanks for helping
[email protected] said:
So whats the point of unrooting and using triangle free if they can figure out that you rooted your device from checking knox records?
Anyway on my new tablet I cant even find knox maybe it's not protected by knox???. (Galaxy s4 phone has it and its visible)
Thanks for helping
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Triangle free wont work. Newer devices have a knox that cant be untriped.
To see knox status, go into download mode and it should say "knox 0x0" and if you triped it it should say "knox 0x1"
[email protected] said:
So I know how to root and unroot and how to use triangle free but I heared about knox software and they say it can be tripped
So I unroot &uninstall root software, use triangle and put stock firmware from sam firmware website back on.
Is my warranty back on at this point or they can check bootloader and knox to find out that I have rooted before.
If its not back tell me what else to do.
Samsung galaxy tab s 10.5. SM-T800
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would never think about rooting if google hadn't messed with kitkat's sd card permission. Hate google
New to all this but I was worried to root my new device because I keep hearing about this knox. I got a feeling my device will need warranty one day. The power button is just so flimsy I can't see it not breaking, getting stuck. I wouldn't think it would matter if I messed with the software and a button got stuck but you never know. I would hate to give them an excuse not to fix it if something goes wrong.
On a side note are the buttons a easy fix?
ddbigs said:
New to all this but I was worried to root my new device because I keep hearing about this knox. I got a feeling my device will need warranty one day. The power button is just so flimsy I can't see it not breaking, getting stuck. I wouldn't think it would matter if I messed with the software and a button got stuck but you never know. I would hate to give them an excuse not to fix it if something goes wrong.
On a side note are the buttons a easy fix?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In Europe tripping knox won't do anything to your warranty.
However, opening the device just to fix the buttons might harm your warranty, so I wouldn't do that myself.
Bright.Light said:
In Europe tripping knox won't do anything to your warranty.
However, opening the device just to fix the buttons might harm your warranty, so I wouldn't do that myself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I really want to root this device. I wonder how they treat warranty claims in Canada, I'm in Toronto.
I was asking on how easy it is to fix smaller things on the device so I can make a decision on if I should root. If its fairly easy maybe I'll take my chances and if anything happens I can try to fix it myself. We also have a lot of small repair places around here that can be fairly cheap, as long as nothing big happens.

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