I just got myself a Note 2, but I have this question that I want to clarify about rooting. I've read about rooting the N7105 in the thread and I'm not looking at swapping custom roms or changing kernels of any sort. I just simply want root access to use Titanium, Cerberus and other root apps. However I'm also concerned about OTA. I want to receive these OTA updates.
The key question I want to know is, will rooting break OTA? This is asked in reference to using apps such as Titanium Backup, Adfree Android, Cerberus, Six Axis and other root apps. I'm not looking at changing any other system files. Can I simply unroot and will be allowed can OTA even though I have other root apps installed? Also how much do I need to be concerned with regarding the flash counter? Does triangle away work even with the updates? I definitely want to keep my flash counter down so that I can unroot and send my device back for servicing in the case of any hardware problems.
Its pretty obvious that OTA will break root although it doesn't seem too hard to root the device again after OTA.
TL;DR Summary of qns:
1) Does OTA break root?
2) If yes, can I unroot (while keeping root apps) and OTA?
3) If no, what extent can I go before I can't OTA? (e.g. are there root apps that modify the system files and prevent OTA?)
4) Does triangle away work with the new updates to reset the flash counter?
Thanks in advance, am hoping to clear up all my doubts before rooting my device.
EDIT: For background's sake, I have some basic experience with rooting my previous phone (HTC Desire HD) but wasn't concerned about OTA because it went EOL at Gingerbread.
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By the question you can tell that i'm rather inexperienced at this, but a buddy of mine(who has a Droid on VZW) and i were debating whether or not doing an OTA update after you root would cause you to loose your ability to root forever.
I guess it's different on both devices, but he contends that he could unroot his droid, which is running a custom 2.2 ROM, install an OTA update, decide he doesn't like it, then just go back to a 2.1 RUU from VZW or Motorola, and then re-root.
Everything i have read here about the EVO indicates that if i am already rooted, and i accept an OTA update, then i will never be able to root again. Does never, really mean never? Or is it just mean that i won't be able to root using the current methods to root the phone?
What if i had never rooted and then accepted the OTA 2.2 from sprint that may be coming this week, would i then be able to root?
What exactly does the update do to remove the ability to get /root access to the phone? Something with the bootloader, HBOOT, or what?
Thanks for the information. Hopefully, this will settle this question for my friend and I.
Chris
OTA updates typically break any existing root methods, and disable any current root access.
Some OTA's also update the phone in a manner which prevents older official roms (that have working roots) from being reinstalled.
At that point, you have an updated rom with known roots removed, that can't be rolled back, so the only option is to wait until another root exploit is found and released. Which may or may not happen depending on the device and whoever is working on it.
Hope that helps.
You can take and accept as many updates as you want....you just have to modify that update by replacing the new hboot with the engineering one.....that way you can freely flash zip files
HTC is tricksy and they dont let you roll back after the OTA. Motorolla may not have this so your friend may in fact be able to roll back to 2.1 (however he may be misinformed as well).
To root basically they find a bug to exploit that allows us to gain access as a root user. when the OTA updates come out 99% of the time they will fix this bug. HTCat least blocks roll backs so now you are on a new version of the software that you can not go backwards and the bug to root is no longer there.
While there are normally other bugs that can be exploited to get root it is possible that there isnt one or that if there is no one can find it. if they cant find it then it could remove your ability to root permanently.
snandlal said:
You can take and accept as many updates as you want....you just have to modify that update by replacing the new hboot with the engineering one.....that way you can freely flash zip files
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
while true accepting an OTA will not give you the chance to do this for most.
ok, that explains things a little better. thanks.
I'm new to all of this as well. My EVO has already been updated OTA by a Sprint employee while I was purchasing the phone. From what I've read it looks like I'm SOL until someone cracks 2.2. One quick question though... How long did it take people to be able to root the first software on the EVO's?
I have been reading threads non stop for about 4 days now. Great forum.
Quick question about Unrevoked Forever.
Q: If I apply Unrevoked Forever to my Evo and then apply some future Stock, non-rooted OTA (which may have radios, etc) and I loose root because of it, does having the low-level S-OFF from Forever allow me to run Unrevoked32 again and get root back no matter what the stock OTA did?
I am trying to figure out a best practice for myself so that I can apply stock OTA's and then easily re-root WITHOUT having to wipe everything and redo my settings or even use a backup/restore. I like that the stock OTAs don't require that I clear off everything.
Thanks for any help.
mbwesner said:
I have been reading threads non stop for about 4 days now. Great forum.
Quick question about Unrevoked Forever.
Q: If I apply Unrevoked Forever to my Evo and then apply some future Stock, non-rooted OTA (which may have radios, etc) and I loose root because of it, does having the low-level S-OFF from Forever allow me to run Unrevoked32 again and get root back no matter what the stock OTA did?
I am trying to figure out a best practice for myself so that I can apply stock OTA's and then easily re-root WITHOUT having to wipe everything and redo my settings or even use a backup/restore. I like that the stock OTAs don't require that I clear off everything.
Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is one thing I dont understand and that is if you root your phone why would you run OTA updates. Someone in XDA will have that update and put it in a form that you can use on your rooted phone. People updating after they root really baffles me... <-----Sorry bout that
Now to answer your question - I believe your best route would be to root your phone with this method here and this way you lose nothing and can just get an update.zip file after an update comes out. The problem is you never know what will change in future updates and a OTA may unroot your phone. Since none of us know for sure thats a risk you will have to take although unrevoked forever is suppose to get around that.
Maybe someone can throw a new guy a bone here? ....
One thing I had on my jailbroken iPhone was free tethering. My Xfinity went down the other day and I realized I couldn't tether my new Android without paying AT$T. So from what I understand, like the iPhone I need to root it and then download a third party tethering app?
If I root now, I'll probably be tempted to give Black Jelly or Frost ROMs a try. I know with this 'Odin' program or 'Nandroid' backup with CWP (still figuring all this out) I can switch between ROMS pretty easily. It takes me about an hour though to download all my apps and reconfig my phone after a reset though. I think Titanium backup or something solves this, but seems to me using something like that with custom ROM, as opposed to a 'clean' install and just start installing/configuring from scratch may pose higher risk of having issues?
So my question is, if I root and install custom ROM, how hard is it to get the official update installed, or any more official future updates installed if I decide I don't want to stay on a custom ROM?
Being an experimental person and my first time to Android, I'm sure I'm going to eventually cave (for sure root) and try a custom ROM. I see SO many posts though in these ROM forums with all sorts of little issues. I want to go back to stock and get official updates if I need to.
When the official jb drops there will most likely be some debloated version on here in a day or so. If you're rooted with a custom recovery it will take no time to install. I would also seriously consider titanium backup, it makes the process much easier.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
OTA after Rooting - Yes and No....
jazee said:
Maybe someone can throw a new guy a bone here? ....
So my question is, if I root and install custom ROM, how hard is it to get the official update installed, or any more official future updates installed if I decide I don't want to stay on a custom ROM?
Being an experimental person and my first time to Android, I'm sure I'm going to eventually cave (for sure root) and try a custom ROM. I see SO many posts though in these ROM forums with all sorts of little issues. I want to go back to stock and get official updates if I need to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are two issues you mention: 1) Having a custom ROM and doing an Custom OTA, and 2) OTA with stock ROM and after you you have rooted your phone.
Stock ROM and OTA after Rooting
In times past, there have been vendors that look for rooting and refused to OTA the phone. Citing it violated warantee, contract, whatever. AT&T use to do it, but with current ROMs, especially with the S3, they simply turn off the SUID bit on /system/xbin/su during the update.(They turn off the Root modification, of sorts). The current OTA of 4.0.4 does this trick. Making near impossible to root afterwards.
Usually it is always best to flash back to stock to insure you get a clean OTA.
Some versions of rooting will allow you to keep root even after OTA, but I would not count on it.
The other issue that some forget is any modification to the ROM may trip a counter which may cause OTA's to fail. In the S3 there is a counter on how many times the ROM has been flashed by custom software. Once it is tripped, any warantee you have on the device is voided. You can see the information when you set your phone into flash mode.
There are programs to reset the counter, and other methods, but it gets pretty ugly and you can hard brick your phone in some cases. Just use them with care.
Custom ROM and OTA after Rooting
With custom ROM's rooting is the norm. OTA's will usually not affect them. In fact some OTA's will include updated 'su' programs. There are some custom ROM's that are not able to OTA.
So it sounds to me like if I plan on rooting to get the free tethering, I should always wait until there's a stock ROM available here and manually install it? That way, I don't lose my root and I don't increase the counter unnecessarily?
Thanks for your help.
I had rooted my SGS3 while on 4.0.4 using the stock Samsung rom and Odin without issue no custom ROMS were installed just root access. Early August of 2013 the OTA for 4.1.2 was rolled out and I had accepted the update which was installed without issue, which apparently should not have been the case (everything I can find says OTAs will fail if you have root access, but this was not the case). I now want to either return to a full stock to get the 4.3.3 update at which point I may remain unrooted, or gain root again and update to 4.3.3 with root. I'm cautious about how to proceed here since I've read about a lot of people bricking their phones while attempting to root after 4.3.3. My primary concern is that my flash counter is tripped at 1, but I don't have root access and am not sure how to proceed with out potentially damaging my phone. So I'm essentially getting the worst of both worlds (unable to receive stock updates from carrier, no root access to update otherwise.) and don't want to be stuck on 4.1.2 for the life of this phone. I still have SuperSU installed, but when I open it it says "There is no SuperSU Binary installed and Super SU cannot install it. This is a problem!"
I have searched these forums and a few related to it, and from what I can gather I should just reroot the phone following instructions for 4.1.2, but if I want to make the jump to 4.3.3 I wasn't clear if this would be needed or not, but none of the threads I could find directly addressed the issue for the ATT SGS3 i747. The closest I found was a thread posted last month where the OP was directed to the CF Root procedures, but there was no followup after that. I'm just a little leery about what might happen if I reroot with another method and end up with duplicate files/.apks etc related to the root process on my phone.
I also wanted to be sure that rerooting using a different method wouldn't somehow damage my phone.
Can someone with some experience please advise of the safest best practice for me to either recover root and update, or remove root and update so I can start fresh later? From what I can gather this should be an easy fix, but I would prefer to rely on the expertise of someone more knowledgable as opposed to winging it on a gut feeling I will be ok.
So I rooted my phone using the method outlined in this thread here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1771687
I used odin to flash the 4.1.2 T-Mobile image and I stopped at the part that said "If you just want a stock, rooted phone with no custom recovery, no plans to flash custom roms, etc. then you can stop HERE" because I only wanted root so I could fix the keyboard bug (keyboard would revert to stock one after resets).
So my question is, can I update to 4.3 via the OTA update that is in the About Device > Software Update section in the phone? Looking elsewhere the official instructions say that the phone should not be rooted before updating. If so, can I get rid of the root in order to update? (As far as I know, the keyboard bug doesn't exist in 4.3 anyway so I don't think I need the root anymore). If not, how can I update to 4.3?
Lastly, and somewhat unrelated, can I use the factory data reset in the Back up and reset section of the settings? Previously in my experience with roms, this would lead to a boot loop but I'm not sure if that is the case with this so-called rooted stock rom.
Thanks in advance.
You can use OTA RootKeeper to temporarily disable Root so that you will receive the update. Or you could also visit the Root66 thread you have linked. There you will see Rooted version of the 4.3 update.
Having said that, You will want to Research the consequences of the 4.3 Stock update. In particular you wish to research the consequences of CIQ, KNOX and the new EFuse Bootloader.
I am by no means an expert but I figure I just did this so it may help you out. I updated my phone to 4.3 accidentally on purpose and then I decided to root my phone like the next day. I used Mr Robinson's method and then used his third method to download the ROM manager and install CWM Recovery and then I put Cyanogen on it. I have not had any issues except the app Trailer Addict doesn't work with it but that is not a big issue. I have everything else that I wanted and more. I don't care about the flash counter since I am not under warranty. Oh and you can use Titanium Backup to back up your apps. I didn't do this the first time so I had to back up from Kies 3 by dragging files onto my SD card and not all worked. I hope I helped a little.