Develop Bugs

Should I unlock bootloader?

As above. Plus the advantages and disadvantages of unlocking z1 compact bootloader.

If you want to flash for example custom kernels you will need to unlock it. Some actions just require an unlocked BL.
Disadvantege is that you COULD have issues when sending it in for repair when you messed up the software.
But when you are careful and backup everything you can always restore it. You can also relock it if necessary (backup TA partition!)
I always unlock the bootloaders on my devices and never had any problems.
But its up to you.

I agree. It just depends on your goal.. If you just want a solid setup with trusty performance that you can use daily for a long time, and sync your emails, social sites, financial, etc., then you're probably best off leaving it alone. If you're into customization and trying new things, it's worth it. From what I've read, the only things you lose are the official support issues mentioned above, and some kind of camera functionality that I'm not real clear about. But, there's a lot of development for this phone, and the unofficial support here is likely better than any official support, and you can probably find a solution here for anything you lose.

Thank you so much for your responses .Though I dediced to unlock it anyway. I want to try other kernels .

I have UB, my answer is no, unlock bootloader when you want to try Android 6.0.

Well. For me I decided not to unlock. More than experimenting I need stable working phone, on all areas. Especially Wi-Fi. And I have not time to play every evening with flashing and reflashing.
Stock stuff is not that bad if tuned.
Android 6 may be flashed on locked BL as far as I know.

Hi, I am also wondering if I should unlock my bootloader. Anyway, camera futures are very important for me and I am curious if I will loose for example noise cancelling. I've seen the thread about DRM functions restoration but does it work with CM based roms?

Maciek602 said:
Hi, I am also wondering if I should unlock my bootloader. Anyway, camera futures are very important for me and I am curious if I will loose for example noise cancelling. I've seen the thread about DRM functions restoration but does it work with CM based roms?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flat answer : No! 1. Either remain on Sony stock roms or 2. Say goodbye to your camera!

Maciek602 said:
Hi, I am also wondering if I should unlock my bootloader. Anyway, camera futures are very important for me and I am curious if I will loose for example noise cancelling. I've seen the thread about DRM functions restoration but does it work with CM based roms?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good thing, you will not lose camera features if you use modded stock camera and noise cancelling will not gone(even in stock). The only thing that i see that u will lose are bravia engine though i glad that is gone(i need color accuracy). though all of it are included and usable even in UB like mxrom(best lp rom i have ever tried)

Newbie Doubt

Hi guys, I have a HTC M8 AT&T (Actually version. Android: 5.0.2 | Software: 4.28.502.1) bought in the United States but use in Brazil, but it is not possible to automatically update and I always down by the site the latest version. I always wanted to modify the phone but was always afraid of not liking too. But now I'm trying to change and unlock it.
I have some doubts about the ROM.
- Everything works the same as the original?
- It will take some bug during use?
- Can I have the visual theme of the original?
- If I want to go back to the original, it is possible?
I apologize for the questions, but it is something I want to solve.
I read a lot here, see topics ROMS but always have some doubts, I see a lot of people talking about problems, etc.
Thank you all.

My responses below in red font:
diigodr said:
I have some doubts about the ROM. What ROM(s) are you considering? If you don't specify, it makes all your following questions too vague to possibly answer!
- Everything works the same as the original? Too vague to know what you are asking about. What specific features are you concerned about? The basic functionality (what you can do with the phone) will be the similar or same; but obviously there will be some differences, otherwise why install the ROM at all? In fact, many custom ROMs will be "better" than stock in many ways (which is the main point). For instance, performance tweaks, removed bloatware, and most will remove AT&T's limitation on being able to use WiFi hotspot (tethering).
- It will take some bug during use? Its possible to have bugs. But the official stock ROMs have bugs, too. ROMs based on HTC baseline ROMs (Sense or GPE) are typically very stable, and with very few bugs (are if any, they are very minor). More on "bugs" below.
- Can I have the visual theme of the original? It depend on what ROM you are talking about. It will typically state in the ROM threads if it has been themed, if it has tools built-in to change the theme, etc.
- If I want to go back to the original, it is possible? Of course. In fact, you can and should make a TWRP (custom recovery) backup of the stock ROM before you flash any custom ROMs, in case you want to revert to stock(as doing a TWRP backup makes it much easier to revert).
I read a lot here, see topics ROMS but always have some doubts, I see a lot of people talking about problems, etc. Again, too vague to know what you are referring to. Sometimes "bugs" are due to user error, such as having outdated firmware, not doing proper wipes before flashing, etc.
Whether to flash a custom ROM is a good idea for you as an individual, is a very personal choice. It depends on what you hope to obtain, which you really haven't mentioned at all. But custom ROMs are obviously worthwhile to a large number of folks. Otherwise, XDA wouldn't exist in the first place.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

What I loose & get after bootloader unlocking?

Hi!
Thinking about unlock my H815 bootloader but still have a feeling 50/50... So is there similar "problems" like Xperia Z3 that you are losing some camera quality after unlock?
If I unlock and f.e. want to test some CM roms - if I thinking about camera app vs Stock ROM - is there difference?
So... cons & pros plz...

Do I need S-Off for this usage?

Hi everyone!
First of all, forgive me for all my noobish mistakes as I have never had a HTC branded phone.
I'm about to buy this phone for a quite decent price and use it as my main and daily driver so before paying I want to know some basic things beforehand.
My main point is to get the rom "ViperOne" working in the M9 with root as I want the best performance from stock HTC firmware and because I need their drivers to be as good as possible ( sound wise).
I have already read the entire OP on the thread rom of ViperOne and I haven't seen a word about S-on/off so I'm guessing that I will not have to mess around with that kind of security right?
So to sum up things, will I need S-Off for this?
-Custom Recovery (twrp)
-ViperOne rom with root.
-Maybe installing another kernel over ViperOne.
-Thermal (software) mod.
-Audio mods.
Thanks everyone by advance.

Just need to have an unlocked M9
S-off is for downgrade firmware, change CID/MID... (more risk to brick )
dirtyl0lharry said:
Hi everyone!
First of all, forgive me for all my noobish mistakes as I have never had a HTC branded phone.
I'm about to buy this phone for a quite decent price and use it as my main and daily driver so before paying I want to know some basic things beforehand.
My main point is to get the rom "ViperOne" working in the M9 with root as I want the best performance from stock HTC firmware and because I need their drivers to be as good as possible ( sound wise).
I have already read the entire OP on the thread rom of ViperOne and I haven't seen a word about S-on/off so I'm guessing that I will not have to mess around with that kind of security right?
So to sum up things, will I need S-Off for this?
-Custom Recovery (twrp)
-ViperOne rom with root.
-Maybe installing another kernel over ViperOne.
-Thermal (software) mod.
-Audio mods.
Thanks everyone by advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

dirtyl0lharry said:
Hi everyone!
First of all, forgive me for all my noobish mistakes as I have never had a HTC branded phone.
I'm about to buy this phone for a quite decent price and use it as my main and daily driver so before paying I want to know some basic things beforehand.
My main point is to get the rom "ViperOne" working in the M9 with root as I want the best performance from stock HTC firmware and because I need their drivers to be as good as possible ( sound wise).
I have already read the entire OP on the thread rom of ViperOne and I haven't seen a word about S-on/off so I'm guessing that I will not have to mess around with that kind of security right?
So to sum up things, will I need S-Off for this?
-Custom Recovery (twrp)
-ViperOne rom with root.
-Maybe installing another kernel over ViperOne.
-Thermal (software) mod.
-Audio mods.
Thanks everyone by advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need s-off but it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to do so if you're rooting the device and messing with roms. It gives that extra level of recovering the device should you cabbage it.
This but is a slight education into custom roms and why "I" believe you shouldn't do it on ANY device:
Custom roms/firmwares are built using "open source" code. Stock roms/firmwares are built using "proprietary" code. "proprietary" code is code that is specifically written for 'x' device by a team of software engineers using "proprietary" software and hardware specifically built for 'x' brand. For example, htc have their own stuff and samsung have theirs, so on and so forth. This makes the software "married/tailor made" to the hardware so it comes as optimised as it can possibly be while weighing in factors of carrier "bloatware". No-one wants to lose a customer because of a device that is inherently slow. No-one will buy a device that is inherently slow.
Then you have custom roms and firmware. Because proprietary code is private and not for the public domain, this "open source code" is more or less "trial and error" process to get all the features of a rom or firmware to run efficiently and effectively. This results in non optimised bad code, bugs, long processes, excess code and therefore "CAN" be slower than stock roms. Couple this with deodexed and it'll bog the device down in no time.
So as you can see, I don't really like custom roms or firmware just for the fact it is no faster or no better than the software that came with the device in the first place. It was designed specifically.
My advice is to leave the phone stock rooted and s-off if you MUST have them. Otherwise don't touch it at all and continue to get updates as they are released with no hassle!.
Beamed in by telepathy.

I need to correct some of the information that got posted previously in this thread.
First of all: There are only custom roms but no custom firmwares for HTC devices (c.f. the difference between rom and firmware).
Second: S-OFF increases the risk of a hard-brick dramatically since it removes security checks of the phone (c.f. this article, the 5th post/the first page of Sneakyghost's firmware thread and the article that I already linked above). S-ON phones will refuse to accept broken files (e.g. RUUs that got corrupted due to a bad download). A phone with S-OFF on the other hand will get flashed with such a broken file and you won't get notified with any error outputs. Another example are those NoRedText aboots which remove the read warning that appears during the boot if the bootloader got unlocked. You can only flash them with S-OFF but if the hex edits didn't get executed correctly this can actually lead to unrecoverable damages.
Don't get me wrong. I'm using a S-OFF phone, too. However, you need to be aware of the risks and that you don't need S-OFF for recovering a phone. Keeping a RUU at hand for your current firmware version (if one exists) or at least a TWRP backup of the stock rom is more than enough. Damages that can't get repaired with either a RUU or a backup can't get repaired with S-OFF, either, in most of the cases.
Third: You need to differentiate between stock rom based custom roms (e.g. ViperOne or ICE) and those custom roms that are developed from source (those are the roms that shivadow mentioned in his post - e.g. Lineage or Resurrection Remix).
Those roms that are based on the stock rom deliver the same perfomance (or maybe an almost not noticeable better/worse performance) than the stock rom does. There are no differences between the core of these roms and the stock rom. (On the other hands this means that bugs of the stock rom are present in these roms, as well.) Therefore the performance differences are minimalistic. However, you don't flash such roms due to their performance differences (in comparison with the stock rom) but due to the additional features that they provide on top of the stock rom experience.
Causes for disadvantages of the other group of custom roms already got explained by shivadow in his post. A perfect example is the bad perfomance of HTC's cameras (the hardware of the phones not the app) on CM/Lineage roms. Nevertheless, I've never seen an HTC phone being incredibly slower on a custom rom than it was on the stock rom. My One S for example is much snappier on Lineage 14.1 than it would be on its android 4.1.1 stock rom and its battery is lasting much longer (well, android 7 has way more battery optimizations than android 4.1.1 so that isn't such a surprise). The only thing that I can complain about is (as mentioned before) the picture quality of the camera.
In other words, it's not always black and white. The best advice that I can give is to test all roms that are available and to use that custom/stock rom that suits your needs best.
Fourth and last: The M9 is more than two years old. HTC normally doesn't support any phone longer than this time period. There probably won't be any more updates than the nougat updates for those SKUs that haven't received firmware 4.x, yet.
TL;DR: What got written in post #2.

I tried to generalise, thats why i mentioned custom firmwares AND roms as some devices have custom firmware, rather than custom roms. Some have both, some have none.
Absolutely right that s-off is a double edged sword that you don't really want to fall on so I highly recommend that it is best to keep the device as stock but if you must root it it's worth s-off. I've seen plenty of posts for devices being screwed regardless of s-off. Also don't you need s-off to be able to restore your system backup from twrp?.
THE only reason I rooted my phone is to block "intrusive" ads. I don't want ads on my homescreen, lockscreen or really anything but apps that are good enough to warrant being paid for their efforts. Now that there is an abundance of adblocking software that no longer requires root I have absolutely no reason to keep my phone modded. I'd flash back to stock but my luck says I'll f**k the phone beyond recognition. It'll probably burn my house down, crash my car and kill my dog too!.
Nowadays root isn't necessary if you're not a dev. Thats the point I'm trying to get across!.
Beamed in by telepathy.

shivadow said:
Also don't you need s-off to be able to restore your system backup from twrp?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, you don't (and never did). It doesn't make any sense to S-OFF the phone just because you can if you don't need it for any of the purposes that are mentioned in the articles/posts that I linked in my last post. It only highers the risk of bricks due to what I wrote in my last post.
And there are other uses for custom roms/root aside from ad blocking but that would be an off-topic discussion in this thread.
Sent from my HTC One M9 using XDA Labs

@Flippy498 @shivadow thank you guys for all the links and the extra informations. I really appreciate it since there are things about HTC that I haven't seen on any other brands.
To get things clearer, since my Moto G XT1039 is getting old ( low performance and battery barely keeps up with the day) and I'm really into music and sound (spotify premium and lots of flacs) and a Fiio X7 android based mp4 is too expensive, I wanted to get a top sound-chip phone, actually, a phone with a top Digital to Analogic Converter.
Of course I do know that if I want to use all the power and features that the M9 makes for its sound, I need to be on stock firmware because of the drivers. I'm guessing that the audio behaves like the camera once using and AOSP based rom ( LOS, Slim, RRemix...) getting worse.
Thats why I want this phone, it basically is much more powerful than my Moto G SD400, it has way better camera, it has a 64bit SoC and official Nougat update and I'll end up with a great DAP on my pocket to use with Spotify.
As I said, I like to get everything as minimal as possible, I hate when the home screen is full of icons and widgets, I hate having lots of icons and indicatos on the status bar, I hate having all sensor toggled on ( gpu, nfc, bluetooth...), thats why I was looking for a stock rom that let me custom all the things to keep it as minimal as possible.
If you know any other updated, stock based rom, just let me know and link it to me as I'll disable as many things as I can to get extra battery on the phone. Yes, you can guess it, even on battery saving mode, the M9 would beat the hell out of the Moto G, so I'm giving up on everything but the sound, just to get more battery time.
I hope you can understand me now.

Is it worth installing CustomROM?

Hello,
I'm thinking about installing some CustomROM last days, but I'm a little bit sceptical about it. Is it worth loosing the warranty? My device is circa 6 months old so I don't want to mess it up to home-unrecoverable state (CEDRIC XT1676, 3/16, DualSIM). What are the biggest advantages and disadvantages of installing CustomROM?
Also, I have some requirements (they're sorted by importance - first one is the most important, the last one is less important)
- it has to be faster and more stable than StockROM - it's the major reason I wanna install CustomROM
- I need Moto Actions (at least double shake to turn on the light) to be working
- I need DualSIM to be working too - if only one SIM would work on DualSIM phone, the phone would lost a part of its potential
- in-built camera app has to be working
- the more AOSP look (interface, launcher, font, animations etc.), the better it is for me
- it should be built on Oreo (8.0/8.1 - doesn't matter) - I think that putting a Nougat CustomROM is a step back these days when a lot of stable CustomROMs for G5 were already released
Is there any ROM that can fit my requirements? Thanks in advance.

Read the rom features and requirements on the first post of the rom thread
This will also include what is or is not working
There is also a thread answering your question about advantages/disadvantages & it was only on page 1 of this Q&A thread so please search before posting
https://forum.xda-developers.com/g5/help/rooting-flashing-advantages-t3781467

I know, I can find working/non-working list in every thread but I want an opinion by someone who changes or was changing ROM more often than socks I mean by someone, who can compare custom with custom (which fit my requirements) and stock with custom (again, with one that fit my requirements).

It's very rare for stock camera to be working on oreo, though footej works just fine.
When it comes to the speed, it depends more on the kernel and what tweaks you have applied rather than the rom itself, though of course, a less bloated rom will always be at least slightly faster.
If you want speed, I recommend installing l speed, you can choose between favouring battery life or performance.

no it's not worth it my moto g5 is hardbricked caz i flashed a stupid 64 bit rom and no one was able to return to stock rom after flashed these 64 bit roms becase if you returned to stock without losing imel like me you will eventually lose imel when you update you stock rom if motorola sends you an ota
so you want a custom rom ; flash a 32 bit one or don't flash one at all