Be warned: Encrypting your device can be dangerous - Galaxy Grand Duos i9082 Q&A, Help & Troubleshootin

Hello,
As Google has decided to turn encryption on as a standard in the upcoming Android 5.0, I thought I would give it a test on my CosmicCM 5.4.
I started the encryption and it prompts you that you for a passcode that will be used from now on, so far no problem.
It started encrypting my device and it was running for some time(I left it alone for an hour) and reboots a couple of times.
After he's finished the annoyance came.
first you will have to type twice your password with a reboot, one time do decrypt your device the second time to enter your device.
Be aware that performance can be slowed through encryption, and it can negatively impact battery life too.
So I decide to go back.
The Problem: Once encrypted, you can't decrypt it easily.
When encrypting the phone android will tell you you can only decrypt it using a factory reset. Naturally you assume it's talking about the "Factory Data Reset" option found in Settings --> Backup and Reset and this works.
Now I wanted to try a rom (TW 4.2.2 based) and see how this worked and after installing and booting.
I got prompted to enter the decryption and of course this didn’t work anymore as there is no data for the password.
So I assumed you can wipe everything from your custom recovery mod (CWM, TWRP, or one of those).
Wrong! You'll get beautiful "can't mount /data" messages and more.
After some hard time I got everything working again, by flashing CosmicCM again.
The phone booted al clean again without asking for encryption and when you check the menu it also mentioned encryption is deactivated.
Trying the previous rom again just triggerd the encryption again.
So It seems that there is still somewhere a hidden encrypted protection that will be activated when I flash a different rom.
So be warned and don’t play with encrypting your device as you could brick it.
Didn't have time to investigate further on how I can remove it completely, but my guess is I have to redo all the partitions.

I was on the same boat a month ago

akiratoriyama said:
I was on the same boat a month ago
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wish you told me sooner
Did you redo all the partitions to get the encryption completely removed?

RichyE said:
I wish you told me sooner
Did you redo all the partitions to get the encryption completely removed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I had to wipe my data via Philz, CWM and stock to remove encryption.

akiratoriyama said:
I think I had to wipe my data via Philz, CWM and stock to remove encryption.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info, will try to flash stock this week and see if this helps

Related

Edit Oct 17, 2014 - Encrypt your device/phone with custom ROM

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any damage or liability arising out of these steps. I did not invent anything, I just tried something. Only move forward at your risk
If you don't agree ... stop reading and move on...
Background: Our phone has access to so much personal information that its scary if it fell into wrong hands. The only way to fix this is to encrypt phone. I did lot of research and here is a working solution that works for me - try at your risk.
Download Links:
a) Tested with ROM Stock 4.4.4 NH7 Galaxy S4 M919/Jfltetmo by @ShinySide
b) Tested with ROM |ROM|★KANGAKAT★|►KTU84P◄|4.4.4|Xposed|►8◄|6.26.14 by @iB4STiD
c) stock recovery AT&T S4 works with M919
d) Philz/CWM custom recovery
Encrypting with custom rom
1) Assume you are on custom recovery. - Backup everything first. Create a nandroid backup
2) Do a full wipe and install one of the two roms linked above (I have tested with few other roms ... none worked). Start the phone and set it up the way you want. Install all apps etc.
3) ODIN Stock recovery. See #c under download above. Its AT&T stock recovery but works for me. You need to know how to ODIN - find out. Doing this wrong will permanently damage your phone
4) Start your phone and turn on encryption. You will need to set lock type = password and will need to connect to charger and have 80% charge.
- Phone will do blank and stay blank for 20-30 minutes. Do not do anything. Encryption is happening behind the scenes.
- You might have to do this twice or thrice if it did not encrypt first time. For me the phone went blank first time and after 25 minutes it restarted but device was not encrypted. I redid the same steps and worked second time.
- If you interrupt the encryption process (battery pull or power up) you will see error message (encryption failed, reset device)
5) If all goes well you now have a password protected encrypted phone with custom rom!!! Check in Settings -> Security
6) You may install custom recovery ... but I don't see the point because you will need stock recovery to decrypt
To install another ROM
1) Reboot into stock recovery, then wipe data and cache (this removes encryption).
2) install your recovery of choice and install ROM using recovery. Philz/CWM
Credit goes to @Tronicus and his reply Flash a Rom on an Encrypted Android
Tronicus said:
How to Flash a rom on an encrypted Android phone (specifically this one, the I9505 SGH-I337).
The Problem: Once encrypted, you can't decrypt it easily. When encrypting the phone android will tell you you can only decrypt it using a factory reset. Naturally you assume it's talking about the "Factory Data Reset" option found in Settings --> Backup and Reset. But noooo, Android is lying through its ****ing teeth. Then you'll assume you have to wipe everything from your custom recovery mod (CWM, TWRP, or one of those). Wrong again! You'll get beautiful "can't mount /data" messages and more bull****. I read about a workaround that required installing the new rom using ADB, but I had ingeniously disabled USB debugging prior to wiping everything, so I only got so far with that option (plus it's tediously long if you haven't installed all the necessary software already and don't feel like bricking your phone because you made a typo in the command line). So, apparently the only other way to really format that partition free of its encryption is to use a stock recovery. So:
Short Version for Godlike users who know automatically how to do all this **** without any help (mimicking how most help posts are finely detailed on this site): Flash stock recovery, wipe everything, flash your custom recovery and install your new rom.
Long version for us mortals who don't know everything and haven't already downloaded already every single bit of software on earth:
Backup all the stuff you want to save. This process will truly wipe EVERYTHING. You can do it manually, or you can use an app like Titanium Backup Pro to help you (find it on Google Play Store). Here's a nice guide which recommends what to restore and what not to restore: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1480343
Flash the stock recovery using Odin. You can download a stock recovery from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=49687791&postcount=3 It's the link called "I337MK2stockrecovery.tar.md5" In case you don't know how to flash it with Odin, this short guide will help: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1506697
In step 6 replace "recovery.tar.md5" with the stock recovery you downloaded.
Wipe everything from the Stock recovery console. This little ****er will **** up the encryption all those sissies couldn't touch. You're welcome. You boot into recovery mode from a turned off phone by pressing simultaneously the volume up key + the home key + the power key until you see blue text appearing in the top left corner of your screen.
Reinstall your custom recovery. In my case I had installed the rom BEFORE flashing in the stock recovery (apparently it works, you just can't boot because of the encryption), so I was able to boot into the new rom before I returned to my custom recovery. Weird. Anyways, I recommend CWM. You can pick it up from this link: http://goo.im/devs/philz_touch/CWM_Advanced_Edition/jflte
For some weird reason they call the I337 version the "jflte" version. It's bonkers. Click there, and download the latest version that ends with .tar.md5. This version is upgradable via Odin, which we already used. Use the same instructions used as when you upgraded the stock recovery rom.
Boot into your recovery mod and flash your rom like you usually do.
A word about TWRP: it cost me many hours of work and I don't recommend it. Its website is outdated, and recommends using GooManager (which is no longer mantained) and doesn't work anymore for this. GooManager suggests using a new, different app, which doesn't have the option of installing TWRP. Then I tried using their TWRP Manager app from play store and the image file wouldn't download. Then I tried manually selecting the image file in TWRP manager that I downloaded from their site for use via the ADB method, and it bricked my phone... twice (using two different methods the app sugested). I tried so much because in theory TWRP has the ability to decrypt android's 4.4 encryption, but after looking at their github site I noticed it was filled with people's reports (including people with the S4) on how it wouldn't work decrypting squat. So I gave up, and installed CWM in 30 seconds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any damage or liability arising out of these steps. I did not invent anything, I just tried something. Only move forward at your risk
cnewsgrp said:
One of the things I needed was the ability to encrypt my phone (device only not external SD) for security purpose. Our phones today gives access to lot of information that I would rather not fall in wrong hands. I did lot of research and here is a working solution.
Credit goes to @Tronicus and his reply Flash a Rom on an Encrypted Android
The quote looks long however it is really very simple. To install another ROM
- Install and reboot into stock recovery, then wipe data and cache (this removes encryption).
- Then install your recovery of choice and install ROM using recovery. Philz/CWM
This has been tested working on |ROM|★KANGAKAT★|►KTU84P◄|4.4.4|Xposed|►8◄|6.26.14 by @iB4STiD
This did NOT work on a Touchwiz ROM by same developer
I have not tested any other ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if it matters too much or not, but the stock recovery you linked to is for the AT&T S4. A good rule of thumb is to never use Odin to flash anything not specifically for your particular device... In this case the M919.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
lordcheeto03 said:
I don't know if it matters too much or not, but the stock recovery you linked to is for the AT&T S4. A good rule of thumb is to never use Odin to flash anything not specifically for your particular device... In this case the M919.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tested stock recovery on M919 .. it works
Honestly im surprised its not talked about more since there is a big push for personal privacy when it comes to data. Encryption really is a pain in the ass to work with on android. Figuring out how to switch or update custom roms while encrypted will drive you insane. The easiest way is to just odin back to stock and start over, but that requires a computer anytime you need to flash anything.
I recently was trying out one of the 4.4.4 GPE roms and turned on encryption. It worked great until i started missing touchwiz and wanted to go back to HyperDrive TW. So the journey began...
First of all, i backed up everything to external storage since i knew everything on the internal storage would have to be wiped. I loaded the phone into recovery mode (using TWRP) and tried wiping, but all i got was a bunch of "Failed to mount" errors. Fine. Got the same error when trying to factory reset or wiping /system, /data, /cache, and anything else. Tried formatting to different file systems and then formatting back to the original but no luck. Fixing permissions didnt help. I just kept trying everything available multiple times.
Eventually it started wiping everything except the /data mount. Well... At least i could install new custom roms. Im not sure exactly what did it because i was just throwing everything at it. Anyways I got it to install, and booted into it. Nope.
Now it was saying I needed the password to decrypt the internal storage. It would detect wrong passwords fine, but as soon as i put the correct password in, it would allow me in, show the green android encryption picture, then blank screen. I thought it was just decrypting and setting up my rom but after a few hours my screen was still black and nothing was happening. Pulled battery and went back to TWRP.
I started wiping everything again and again and tried doing everything i could to wipe everything on the internal storage. Again, not sure what did it, but eventually got it all cleaned up and got a new rom installed and could boot into it.
The whole process probably took about 6-7 hours...
I dont even want to enable encryption on the new rom...
p-hil said:
Honestly im surprised its not talked about more since there is a big push for personal privacy when it comes to data. Encryption really is a pain in the ass to work with on android. Figuring out how to switch or update custom roms while encrypted will drive you insane. The easiest way is to just odin back to stock and start over, but that requires a computer anytime you need to flash anything.
I recently was trying out one of the 4.4.4 GPE roms and turned on encryption. It worked great until i started missing touchwiz and wanted to go back to HyperDrive TW. So the journey began...
First of all, i backed up everything to external storage since i knew everything on the internal storage would have to be wiped. I loaded the phone into recovery mode (using TWRP) and tried wiping, but all i got was a bunch of "Failed to mount" errors. Fine. Got the same error when trying to factory reset or wiping /system, /data, /cache, and anything else. Tried formatting to different file systems and then formatting back to the original but no luck. Fixing permissions didnt help. I just kept trying everything available multiple times.
Eventually it started wiping everything except the /data mount. Well... At least i could install new custom roms. Im not sure exactly what did it because i was just throwing everything at it. Anyways I got it to install, and booted into it. Nope.
Now it was saying I needed the password to decrypt the internal storage. It would detect wrong passwords fine, but as soon as i put the correct password in, it would allow me in, show the green android encryption picture, then blank screen. I thought it was just decrypting and setting up my rom but after a few hours my screen was still black and nothing was happening. Pulled battery and went back to TWRP.
I started wiping everything again and again and tried doing everything i could to wipe everything on the internal storage. Again, not sure what did it, but eventually got it all cleaned up and got a new rom installed and could boot into it.
The whole process probably took about 6-7 hours...
I dont even want to enable encryption on the new rom...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah Encryption does not seem to work on TWZ roms. I tried on G Eye without luck.
I have updated op. Please check
Encryption will slow down your phone quite a bit. More battery usage + more CPU usage + slower phone = not worth it unless you've got some very private stuff you don't want being shared. Otherwise, 3rd party apps that lock a lot of files, can encrypt certain files, and hide others will do the trick perfectly well.'
Not trying to bash fully encrypting your phone, but I've tried it before and although I am very pro privacy, I had to eventually take it off due to all the extra hassle it created.
Don't know about slowing down. I am not seeing it. I feel differently about security.

Device encryption

Has anyone noticed any issue on their h815 with regards to encrypting the phone? Mine does not work; full or quick option. Has unlocking the bootloader caused this to stop working? I have got root and twrp recovery. Could the custom recovery be causing the phone to get stuck on rebooting to encrypt? The lg website says certain features no longer work after the bootloader is unlocked; maybe this is one of those? All just guess work atm, any help would be appreciated.
v1ne said:
Has anyone noticed any issue on their h815 with regards to encrypting the phone? Mine does not work; full or quick option. Has unlocking the bootloader caused this to stop working? I have got root and twrp recovery. Could the custom recovery be causing the phone to get stuck on rebooting to encrypt? The lg website says certain features no longer work after the bootloader is unlocked; maybe this is one of those? All just guess work atm, any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
i do not know, as I do NOT (yet?) own the device! But I would love to know! Any unlocked + encrypted phones out there? I would be interested how many of the geeks around here encrypt their phones?
For me, these days, I do not own a single device (PC, Notebook, Smartphone whatever) that is NOT encrypted. The more easy you loose the device, the more encryption should be a standard.
What is the reality? And does it work with the unlocked bootloader?
v1ne said:
I have got root and twrp recovery. Could the custom recovery be causing the phone to get stuck on rebooting to encrypt? d.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly the same here! I would be very happy if someone could help me out, maybe by looking at some logcat files? The device is rooted after all. Just tell me what log files you would need?
I would like to try to flash the stock recovery. Delete TWRP as I think this could be the culprit. I read about bringing the device back to stock but I am unsure what files I do need exactly and how to proceed. I downloaded the LG Flash tool. Any help would be very much appreciated!
I just got this phone, rooted, unlocked BL, installed Xposed. I tried to encrypt phone, but when I started the process, it rebooted and now it's at the white T-Mobile splash screen. There's no progress indication anywhere and it has been almost an hour. I think I'll have to pull battery.
v1ne said:
Has anyone noticed any issue on their h815 with regards to encrypting the phone? Mine does not work; full or quick option. Has unlocking the bootloader caused this to stop working? I have got root and twrp recovery. Could the custom recovery be causing the phone to get stuck on rebooting to encrypt? The lg website says certain features no longer work after the bootloader is unlocked; maybe this is one of those? All just guess work atm, any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you (or fpsq) manage to do this in the end (and if yes, how)? I have the same issue I think... rooted the phone with the method here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/g4/general/lg-g4-100-root-success-directives-root-t3180586
and now the phone gets stuck on the initial reboot after launching encryption. It works if I unplug the battery, which shows it doesn't even start the process.
Thanks for any help.
It didn't get anywhere, so I tried it again with quick encryption. Same white screen. I rooted with a huge pre-rooted system image. using dd. Did you unlock boot loader, install custom recovery, or install Xposed?
OGIGA said:
It didn't get anywhere, so I tried it again with quick encryption. Same white screen. I rooted with a huge pre-rooted system image. using dd. Did you unlock boot loader, install custom recovery, or install Xposed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No to all three. I also used dd but first dumped my system partition, injected the root files, and then rewrote it (rather than the main method that you used, writing the ready-made image). See the thread I linked earlier for details.
It really seems the root is the problem here. fpsq seems to have gotten it working in a roundabout way:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=62156629&postcount=1468
but I don't understand exactly what he did, I PMed him to ask.
WARNING: Once you encrypt your phone/sdcard you can NOT cancel the process. After you encrypt your phone/sdcard, if you forget your password, you will have to factory reset (wipes /data) and/or format your sdcard (wipes /external_SD) to get a useable phone. Your data WILL be lost!
Also TWRP can not read encrypted volumes other than some Nexus devices, so make a backup BEFORE you encrypt it or the internal/external sdcard.
Overview: You have to kill the SuperSu daemon (temporarily unrooting it) and THEN start the stock encryption process.
1. Install Busybox (need the pkill utility)
2. Open Terminal Emulator and:
Code:
$ su
# pkill -KILL daemonsu
$ exit
NOTE: You'll notice that the # changed back to $. This means that you are no longer the root user and the SuperSu daemon is not running. Do NOT open any other apps, including the SuperSu app.
3. Now go to Settings ---> Security ---> Encrypt Phone.
IMPORTANT: Make sure your phone charger is plugged in. Go through the prompts to encrypt your phone and/or sdcard and the phone will reboot. It will stay at the bootscreen for about a minute and then you will see the white encryption screen. it will ask you for an encryption password. Once you set that, write it down, email it to yourself, whatever you have to do to remember it because if you forget it, there is no helping you. You will have to factory reset (wipes /data) to get a useable phone. Your data WILL be lost!
It will run until it gets to 100% and the phone will reboot. Once it comes back up with the white screen, enter your password and the boot phone will finish booting. To check that the phone/sdcard is encrypted, go to Settings ---> Security and under Encrypt Phone and Encrypt SD card storage, you should see "Encrypted".
Hope this helps.
barcodelinux said:
You have to kill the SuperSu daemon (temporarily unrooting it) and Then start the stock encryption process.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It works! And it's so clear why it works, now why didn't I think of this?
Thanks a lot for figuring it out and posting it here, you really helped me! Phones hold so much private data nowadays and are so easy to lose that I was really uncomfortable using it unencrypted.
OGIGA said:
I just got this phone, rooted, unlocked BL, installed Xposed. I tried to encrypt phone, but when I started the process, it rebooted and now it's at the white T-Mobile splash screen. There's no progress indication anywhere and it has been almost an hour. I think I'll have to pull battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey there - did you get any luck with this? My G4 updated to MM last week, and now I'm trying encryption - but it's been sitting on the initial boot screen for over an hour (not a loop, just that one screen), with no progress bar or screen.
No idea what it's doing, but hoping that pulling the battery out won't brick it completely!
PS. my phone isn't even rooted, so it can't be THAT causing a problem
Thanks,
J
jasonnm said:
Hey there - did you get any luck with this? My G4 updated to MM last week, and now I'm trying encryption - but it's been sitting on the initial boot screen for over an hour (not a loop, just that one screen), with no progress bar or screen.
No idea what it's doing, but hoping that pulling the battery out won't brick it completely!
PS. my phone isn't even rooted, so it can't be THAT causing a problem
Thanks,
J
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just installed Marshmallow last week and took a stab at encryption again. I installed TWRP 2.7.8.1, by the way. What I also did was flash what I think is the original boot.img. I think this would have un-rooted my device and maybe un-Xposed too, but I forgot because I was really sick last week.
Anyway, the standard device encryption actually worked. I opted for /data encryption instead of full device. Funny thing was that the first time I did it, it was stuck at the boot screen, but was actually encrypting. I didn't know that, so I took out the battery and it screwed up my /data, so the OS made me wipe /data. Fortunately, I backed up right when I did Marshmallow, so I restored my /data. I went to encrypt again and waited this time. Eventually, the screen went from boot screen to the encrypting screen starting at like 60% finished. It finished and my /data was encrypted!
I went to TWRP but TWRP could not decrypt my /data no matter what password I tried. Since my /system and /boot were not encrypted, SuperSU installation was easy. I got the password screen at boot like expected.
However, when I installed Xposed, the password screen would keep popping up with "_____ has stopped" persistently and I had to time it right hit each key of the password. When I uninstalled Xposed, the popups stopped. Installed Xposed again, popups were back. After struggling to enter the password and booting up, everything works fine.
That's how much I have experienced so far.
OGIGA said:
I just installed Marshmallow last week and took a stab at encryption again. I installed TWRP 2.7.8.1, by the way. What I also did was flash what I think is the original boot.img. I think this would have un-rooted my device and maybe un-Xposed too, but I forgot because I was really sick last week.
Anyway, the standard device encryption actually worked. I opted for /data encryption instead of full device. Funny thing was that the first time I did it, it was stuck at the boot screen, but was actually encrypting. I didn't know that, so I took out the battery and it screwed up my /data, so the OS made me wipe /data. Fortunately, I backed up right when I did Marshmallow, so I restored my /data. I went to encrypt again and waited this time. Eventually, the screen went from boot screen to the encrypting screen starting at like 60% finished. It finished and my /data was encrypted!
I went to TWRP but TWRP could not decrypt my /data no matter what password I tried. Since my /system and /boot were not encrypted, SuperSU installation was easy. I got the password screen at boot like expected.
However, when I installed Xposed, the password screen would keep popping up with "_____ has stopped" persistently and I had to time it right hit each key of the password. When I uninstalled Xposed, the popups stopped. Installed Xposed again, popups were back. After struggling to enter the password and booting up, everything works fine.
That's how much I have experienced so far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the extra info - need to try again when I get a bit more time, but I eventually pulled the battery (risky, I know!) and put it back in and everything was normal, like nothing had changed. Certainly no encryption anywhere.
Will update when I give it another try.
Thanks again!
So if I had my SD card encrypted, and my phone puked, I get another G4 and want to use my old SD card (I have the password) how can I access the files on the SD card ?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Anyone enabled encryption with CM11?

Since encryption is in the news right now with iPhones perhaps it's time we Android users looked into it more. I'm interested to hear other people's experiences. Did it work at all? Did it affect performance? Were you able to do upgrades after?
Search button, ~20 results, filter the useful ones, leave out the misleading ones...
Tayyab.Hasan said:
Disk encryption is working flawless. (Phone restarted in first attempt and wont show decrypt screen after first reboot otherwise no problem).
allangoing said:
Disk Encryption on Jan 26 is working correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
llenp said:
Tested encryption and can verify it works 100%. But, there is a catch. It's always going to be a one-way street. Typically, when you encrypt a regular Android phone, the only way to decrypt it is to do a factory reset.
The only way to go back to an unencrypted state with our Fire Phones would be to format data (not wipe data) in Safestrap.
Unfortunately, this means you lose EVERYTHING. So you will definitely want to store any TWRP backups you have on your computer first.
Fortunately though, you will end up with a clean CM11 install after formatting data. Then all you have to do is go back and restore whatever TWRP backups you made before encrypting in the first place.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it's working on slimkit, suppose working on CM11, but yes, you have to do factory reset for decryption.
When I encrypted, the encryption itself was fine, but Safestrap can't access /media that I know of. I put .zips in /cache and it worked like a charm. You'll need root to do that, though.
--EDIT--
If you also want to perform a NAND dump while encrypted, Onandroid seems to do a fantastic job at it.

Does Encryption NEVER work in ROMS

So I kind of like the fact encryption is turned on automatically by Nextbit (and I did figure out how to get out of my encryption loop)
And I have tried to encrypt the disk with
-Pacman ROM
-Reserrection ROM
-Paranoid Android
and all of them bootloop and never actuall boot up once you press "encrypt".... so is it impossible to encrypt once you have an unlocked bootloader and recovery installed? I get its detrimental to the whole process of flashing incessantly but still
Grrrrrrr
Can sum1 confirm
tlxxxsracer said:
If you unlock the bootloader,that alone won't cause encryption issues. You have to flash a specific boot.img or zip that will disable encryption.
Don't unencrypt and should be fine.
Not sure why you'd want to encrypt if your BL is unlocked. Encryption only hurts performance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the reply
I wanted to encrypt my current ROM to just get the extra protection from theft or lost device.
I really like the current ROM im using and dont need to flash anymore currentlty, so i would be fine locking it down with encryption
But i cant get ANY of the ROMS to encrypt like they normally do say compared to the G3
So there is a solution to this. Basically, when you encrypt the file system on one rom, even when you wipe the data certain things are still tied to the old file system. That's why when you go to encrypt the encryption fails, because the remnant stuff from the other rom is in the way. The solution is to completely reformat the data partition (using TWRP, select format data, or change the data file system to F2FS and then back to ext4.). This will clear the conflicts causing encryption to bootloop. However, this process will need to be repeated every single time you switch roms (updating a rom is fine).
I believe Cyanogenmod supports encryption, though I have never tried it.
yanowman said:
So I kind of like the fact encryption is turned on automatically by Nextbit (and I did figure out how to get out of my encryption loop)
And I have tried to encrypt the disk with
-Pacman ROM
-Reserrection ROM
-Paranoid Android
and all of them bootloop and never actuall boot up once you press "encrypt".... so is it impossible to encrypt once you have an unlocked bootloader and recovery installed? I get its detrimental to the whole process of flashing incessantly but still
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you flashed the custom boot image, you CANNOT re encrypt your phone. Won't work.

Lineage/CyanogenMod requires password on boot

Hello all!
So I've been rooting and installing custom ROMs on my Android phones since getting started on my Galaxy S2 back in the day, and as it stands I've never encountered such an annoying roadblock as I've been forced to deal with over the past few days.
I just got a new HTC 10, and quickly went ahead and rooted my phone to get a custom ROM on there. The ROM seemed to boot fine, but the home button wasn't working and I had forgotten to download and install GApps. The other problem was, upon flashing the new LineageOS, TWRP would not recognize any files whatsoever on my device--including the backup I had made. So, I went ahead and flashed the latest RUU and returned to stock. After realizing the RUU is Nougat firmware, I got the latest TWRP and went ahead to try and reinstall Lineage again.
This time, however, the phone decided to stop on a screen asking for a password before it fully boots. I've tried this with every ROM I've installed and every time it will ask for a password. Boot into Recovery, and it will ask for a password there and have all my files hidden, keeping me from doing anything short of a re-flashing my RUU to return to stock. I know these ROMs evidently encrypt your phone during first boot, but I'm at a loss for info on what I'm apparently doing wrong to cause this issue.
Is this an Android N issue? On M, I was able to boot into Lineage, though TWRP still had the file issue. Anyways, whatever help would be fully appreciated. Since I'm a new user I wasn't able to inquire directly on the LineageOS thread, and so deferred to Q&A.
EDIT:
I've solved the issue. After re-flashing the RUU, flashing TWRP, and re-rooting over and over, I figured out what seemed to be going on.
In case anyone else has the same problem as me, here was my solution:
Starting from stock, I went ahead and flashed my phone with the latest TWRP compatible with N (3.0.3.0 at this current time). Afterwards I flashed LineageOS and GApps. As usual, upon reboot, the phone needed a password to get in. So, I rebooted to Recovery, which also required a password. I hit cancel, wiped the phone with a factory reset, formatted all data, and restarted. This did the trick, and I've been running LineageOS 7.1 with no problems whatsoever!
Which version of TWRP are you using at the moment. If you're on N firmware I'd recommend to use 3.0.3-0, that is to be found on the download tab of the TWRP thread.
Sent from my htc_pmeuhl using XDA Labs
dreDREb13 said:
Hello all!
So I've been rooting and installing custom ROMs on my Android phones since getting started on my Galaxy S2 back in the day, and as it stands I've never encountered such an annoying roadblock as I've been forced to deal with over the past few days.
I just got a new HTC 10, and quickly went ahead and rooted my phone to get a custom ROM on there. The ROM seemed to boot fine, but the home button wasn't working and I had forgotten to download and install GApps. The other problem was, upon flashing the new LineageOS, TWRP would not recognize any files whatsoever on my device--including the backup I had made. So, I went ahead and flashed the latest RUU and returned to stock. After realizing the RUU is Nougat firmware, I got the latest TWRP and went ahead to try and reinstall Lineage again.
This time, however, the phone decided to stop on a screen asking for a password before it fully boots. I've tried this with every ROM I've installed and every time it will ask for a password. Boot into Recovery, and it will ask for a password there and have all my files hidden, keeping me from doing anything short of a re-flashing my RUU to return to stock. I know these ROMs evidently encrypt your phone during first boot, but I'm at a loss for info on what I'm apparently doing wrong to cause this issue.
Is this an Android N issue? On M, I was able to boot into Lineage, though TWRP still had the file issue. Anyways, whatever help would be fully appreciated. Since I'm a new user I wasn't able to inquire directly on the LineageOS thread, and so deferred to Q&A.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Installing cm will encrypt your device, was you encrypted previously? Then you would have created a password to access your device.
In my case, I formatted data and then flashed my sense rom (venom) I chose not to encrypt, cm doesn't give this option when you flash it so you have no choice at the time. So if you don't have the password and the device has been encrypted you'd have to format data, don't jump into that just yet though.
Unless someone else knows a way around that, personally I couldn't. However I did have a rom installed so I could boot the rom and back up my data once in the OS. Then format (not wipe) and then reinstall the rom.
Sounds confusing, to be sure we need more info from you.
Do you have an operating system at the moment? If you do then back up your data so that's safe.
Do you know the password to decrypt your phone??
5m4r7ph0n36uru said:
Which version of TWRP are you using at the moment. If you're on N firmware I'd recommend to use 3.0.3-0, that is to be found on the download tab of the TWRP thread.
Sent from my htc_pmeuhl using XDA Labs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm running 3.0.3.0. I had a problem after re-flashing my RUU where TWRP wouldn't boot, but I quickly realized this was due to using an M compatible TWRP with the new firmware.
dladz said:
Installing cm will encrypt your device, was you encrypted previously? Then you would have created a password to access your device.
In my case, I formatted data and then flashed my sense rom (venom) I chose not to encrypt, cm doesn't give this option when you flash it so you have no choice at the time. So if you don't have the password and the device has been encrypted you'd have to format data, don't jump into that just yet though.
Unless someone else knows a way around that, personally I couldn't. However I did have a rom installed so I could boot the rom and back up my data once in the OS. Then format (not wipe) and then reinstall the rom.
Sounds confusing, to be sure we need more info from you.
Do you have an operating system at the moment? If you do then back up your data so that's safe.
Do you know the password to decrypt your phone??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turns out formatting the data was the solution. Thankfully this phone is brand new, so there was no data to lose.
As for why Cyanogen and Lineage automatically encrypt without giving some sort of default password, I have no idea...
Thanks for the help, though!
dreDREb13 said:
Turns out formatting the data was the solution. Thankfully this phone is brand new, so there was no data to lose.
As for why Cyanogen and Lineage automatically encrypt without giving some sort of default password, I have no idea...
Thanks for the help, though!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could have thought of that myself. Encryption used by Cyanogen/Lineage is different to HTCs encryption used on Sense based ROMs. Thanks for your feedback.
Sent from my htc_pmeuhl using XDA Labs
dreDREb13 said:
I'm running 3.0.3.0. I had a problem after re-flashing my RUU where TWRP wouldn't boot, but I quickly realized this was due to using an M compatible TWRP with the new firmware.
Turns out formatting the data was the solution. Thankfully this phone is brand new, so there was no data to lose.
As for why Cyanogen and Lineage automatically encrypt without giving some sort of default password, I have no idea...
Thanks for the help, though!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no password and I've had it out in the cm thread, apparently it's common knowledge, which we've both found out its not, there is no password either so you did what was required.
Also, click thanks instead of saying mate [emoji6]
Glad you're back up and running.
thanks had same issue when installing Lineage 14.1 nightly on my HTC 10 today, which already had twrp on it and the stock rom - your solution worked.
i.e.
turn off device
hold volume down while pressing power for few seconds
choose reboot to bootloader from menu
choose boot to recovery mode
hit cancel when prompted for password
choose wipe from twrp, use default options
reboot
no more password prompt.

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