A N00b's First Foray Into Modding Their Phone [Root, DN4]

A N00b's First Foray Into Modding Their Phone [Root, DN4] - AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note II

I've always been interested in installing ROMs, rooting, and all the cool stuff that comes with it, since my first android phone. Unfortunately, my first two android phones ended up having a lot of issues with just working stock, so when I finally ended up getting a Samsung Galaxy Note II (I317M - Rogers/Canadian) and it worked... I held off on the modding. Well, my cell contract is up, the warranty has expired, sounds like the perfect time to start.
Of course, this is post KNOX, so after reading around and watching some videos, it was unclear as to whether I could actually install ROMs at all. I wasn't worried about the warranty, just if I could do it, and it would work. So I decided to just jump in anyway.
First task is to root. I tried flashing a CWM+Root with Odin 1.85. No go. Just wouldn't work. So I ended up using chainfire's CF-Auto-root. It would give me the root I wanted, and the stock recovery. The package came with Odin 3.07, and everything worked. It flashed, I downloaded Titanium Backup and launched it, and SuperSU did prompt for root access, and everything went fine. Excellent! Two years after getting the phone and 3 years since I've wanted to do this, everything is going well.
Next task is a custom recovery. I picked TWRP, mostly because I wanted to try the Ditto Note ROM, and they suggested using that. Flashed the recovery in Odin 3.07 and reboot into Recovery with the three finger salute of volume up, home, and power. TWRP launches. Excellent. First order of business is to click the backup button and check all the boxes. Takes 1400-1500 seconds to backup the 6.5GB.
Time to get the ROM and jump in. Downloaded Ditto Note 4 v 2.2 from the team Electron site, and transfer it to my phone. So far things are looking good. Still don't know for SURE if my bootloader is locked or if KNOX will not let me do things, but I have a couple of backups, so I'm going to take the plunge. I reboot into TWRP, wipe the dalvik cache, cache, data, and system, then I install the ROM. Didn't take long at all. Time to see if it works.
At this point I should mention that the reboot function on TWRP(v2.8.6.0) seems to just loop me back into TWRP, no matter which option I choose. So I hold the power button to actually reboot... and...
TA DA! Ditto Note 4 is going through it's first start. I come across a black and white gradient fill background with some sort of animated tesseract sphere in the middle. I'm cool with that, but that also means I can add in my own animation at some point which is even more cool. Go through the start up prompts and...
The first problem. Wifi won't turn on. The other Canadians here will know the pain of not having wifi for your cell with our data prices up here. This is something that needs to be solved. Back on to the forums to see if anyone else has had the same issue, and someone did, the solution? Flash the latest AGNi kernel. Hey, I'm down, now do I flash a kernal with odin or TWRP? After spending way too much time on google, I went to the actual AGNi thread and after a few pages found out that people were installing it with CWM. TWRP it is then. I tried installing it through TWRP, all seemed to go well, though I did note that in the terminal window I did say that it failed to set permissions. That can't be good, but it did say that it installed successfully. Let's give it a go.
The phone started... but nothing had changed. I noticed the OTA Updater app, so I tried using that. Once it was done downloading I clicked the install/flash button. That wasn't a good idea. I flashed it, but ended up in a loop that would only show me TWRP. Even after removing the battery it would only go to TWRP.
What else could I do? I restored the backup in TWRP. Let's start over.
Rooted with the same method, Installed TWRP again, installed DN4 again, tried to run the AGNi settings app and found out that root wasn't working. So after some searching I came across the 2.14 SuperSU update and installed it with TWRP. Root is back. Awesome. Time to get my wifi back, installed the 4.4.5 AGNi kernel, and this time, no permission sets failed. This too, is a great sign. Got the OTA Updater download and this time, decided not to have the program reboot to install it, and just rebooted into TWRP myself to do it manually. Installed fine, rebooted and... my wifi is working.
Mission accomplished. I haven't fully tested everything yet, but I did check to make sure that the s-pen was working, the camera, and after messing with the APN settings a bit, had LTE as well.
All things considered, for a first time, not too bad. So glad I had made that backup before hand. Glad I had remembered to do that, and also to write down the APN stuff before hand. It was mostly correct to what I had, but there were 2 fields that were different, changed them and had full LTE.
So far things seem great! More testing is needed, but I can call and recieve calls, wifi/cellular data works, camera and s-pen works.
Still a noob in this department, but due to the xda-devs making good products, nothing killed the phone, and things are working great.
Thanks to Chainfire, Team Win, Team Electron, psndna88, and anyone else that has worked on any of these projects. So far things work well, and those of us with older phones really appreciate your effort and work on breathing new life into these devices. Cheers mates!

Nice first post for your first one my friend excellent ?! If you need any help with Dn4 you can post in the q&a section since your so new to Xda.
And welcome to the world of Android and Xda enjoy your stay here.. Ttys
Bajan

Related

[Q] Finally Flashed!!! (This Is Gonna Be Long...)

When last Feb. I finally switched from my iToy to my N7100, I thought that 'flashing' was something that some perv did while wearing a raincoat.
(Hey, I'm pushing 70)
I Finally got my device rooted. I know that it's rooted because while using CF Auto, It wanted me to flash a Triangle Away update, and my binary count went down from 22 to one... so I know at least that worked.
Overjoyed that in Odin, when flashing I first got the notice "Reset!" and then after a few minutes and a restart, I got the "Done" notice (or whatever it said) as I never unplugged from the USB as it says you're supposed to. I just forgot.
Prior to "upgrading" to 4.3 Indian version, I had the stock Rom 4.1.2 running the Perseus Kernel... loved it, but upgrading to 4.3 has turned out to be the worst decision so far.
I still have a lot of Root apps on the phone but they don't work, but as I said, Triangle Away did work.
Should I uninstall the existing ones like Tit. Backup Pro and a few others and re-download them?
Does CF Auto Root automatically install SuperSU? Or should I uninstall that and re-download that too?
One last question....
Assuming that I do have Root, and I'm able to get Titanium Backup Pro working and am able to freeze and/or uninstall the Knox files... What about the ODEX files with Knox.
On this site, I have heard both pieces of advice... Delete and not delete the ODEX'd files.
What is it?
Nobody ever comes up with a definitive answer on this site... it's just a bunch of opinions, usually with the disclaimer, "Worked for me", or something like that... combined with the fact that I really hate working with the Windows partition on my Mac to do the flashing.
Oh, one more thing.
I'd like to go back to the Perseus kernel which somebody mentioned here on XDA.
Are there any kernels for the N7100 that are only useable with 4.1.2 that I should NOT use with 4.3, or does it matter. In other words, would it work with 4.3 as it did with 4.1.2?
Too bad that I don't have somebody like ChainFire living next door. Haha!
I have to thank the XDA site for most of my knowledge since last Feb. when I thought that rooting had something to do with digging up a tree in my front yard.
One more thing (again), I just got an update for Rom Manager Premium and it looks like I can download a CM stable release, which I'm gonna do as soon as I get some of these things ^^^Above answered and ironed out.
I'd like to stick with AOSP as opposed to AOKP but I'll do anything to get away from this current ROM.
Thanks in Advance to anyone who can answer some of these Noob questions.

1-ok i think that you have a custom recovery now, i had these issues a lot on 4.3, if you have custom recovery TWR or CWM you can install any rooted 4.3 rom, but before you do so make sure you backed up your efs folder (VIP you will lose signal if this folder corrubted), after a clean install of any rooted rom, just install ur apps again, if you don't have custom recovery you will need to flash any recovery from Odin, if you can't install recovery from odin so this will be bec. of knox, report back bec. this is another story.
2- some kernels works fine with 4.1.2 or 4.3, and some old ones are only 4.1.2, so make sure that you will flash the right kernel (e.g. devil, AgniPure Stock, ....)
3- don't try to update to CM now, frist make sure that you have a fully working rooted rom with custom recovery install, i also don't recommend flashing roms using any app (rom manager fore example), i think the best flash is the one you do from recovery with clean flash

Just A Follow-Up...
Hey, thanks, evaworld!!!
UPDATE:
I decided to try Root Explorer again (It never worked before to delete anything before this time) and do a search for anything with Knox in it.
I found everything Knox and checked all the boxes except for the ODEX'd files, hit the trash can and wow... it asked for Root privileges. I gave it, and everything was gone in a flash (Pun intended).
Then I tapped on Ti Backup Pro and got the dreaded 'Android device I.D. changed' message so I came back here to XDA and read literally every post on it (Again, opinions are divided) and decided to ignore.
After that, nothing was working for me in Google Play, so I just deleted the data in Google Play Services, Google Play Store, and now I'm waiting for it to take effect in Google Play... whenever I did that in the past, it usually took a couple of hours for it to register. (?)
Now, all of my Rooted apps that I've tried so far are working, but somewhere along the line they pushed Samsung Link on my phone even though I've had Samsung Apps disabled since day one.
The funny thing is that with a Binary Count of 22, I did absolutely nothing differently than this time (Except for an abortive try with Philz_Touch that I don't particularly like the GUI in P_T)... same USB cable, same port, same Windows partition on my Mac, etc. etc. it took this time and I'm pretty overjoyed!
I'll follow evaworld's advice on the ROM... better not throw too much into the mix until I decide that everything is all ironed out.
And, yes, I did click the "Thanks" button for you.

Very good that you have root, but also note that your setup isn't so stable (besides the fact that 4.3 isn't very stable with root apps e.g. I always have problems with titanium and Super and alot of other apps that requires root) , so just clean install a good 4.3 app (I recommend DN3), and after that you are free to do whatever you want (don't forget efs backup in sage place).
Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Samsung Galaxy S4 Problem

Hello everyone,
I really need your help with my wife's Metro PCS Samsung GS4 M919N.
The thing is, we are now living outside the US so I had to unlock her phone. After ordering the unlock codes, I decided to root the phone and use a custom ROM while waiting for the codes.
That is why I found this guide here: androidforums.com/metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root/790899-metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root-guide.html
So while reading the guide, I aimed to have the following accomplished at the end:
Recovery: TWRP
Custom ROM: CyanogenMod 10.2.1
I then started doing the guide for the TWRP recovery by using Odin. I got the message saying that the flashing passed and went ahead to restart to recovery to install CM 10.2.1 as a custom ROM. The thing is that I keep on restarting to the stock recovery not TWRP. So I went to YouTube and found a video showing how to flash TWRP using GooManager. After following that guide, I went to restart to recovery and I successfully got into TWRP.
Now, to achieve my goal, all that's left to do is to flash CyanogenMod 10.2.1 (jfltetmo).
Before doing that, I decided to make a backup. After using TWRP to do a backup, I proceeded to installing the custom ROM + gapps (wiped with the default settings). Everything was working I think (I handed the phone to my wife so she was he one testing it). After some time, she decided she wants the stock ROM instead so I decided to download the androidforums.com/metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root/783769-rom-recovery-flash-able-stock-m919nuvuamf2-rooted-deodexed-rom.html ROM.
I flashed the newly downloaded ROM + gapps (same file). This time, I couldn't get the gapps to work probably because it was meant for another version. So I decided to just restore from the backup I created earlier.
So, the usual stuff. Wipe. Restore. Restart.
Seems to be going smoothly because my wife was happy to see the old ROM she was used to.
Until the phone started to restart on it's own. (It's pretty much downhill from here on out).
At first I thought it was just a random thing that probably would never happen again. I was wrong as it became more frequent as days went by.
Recently I can't just restart the phone, I would have to remove the battery and then restart it. Now, it's getting really hard to restart the phone. Please help me fix this. I prefer to leave the phone rooted, but if the fix unroots the phone then so be it, anyway my wife prefers the stock ROM so only the unlocking was necessary.
Metro PCS Samsung Galaxy S4 M919N
Recovery:
TWRP 2.6.3.1
ROMs:
Stock Metro PCS
CyanogenMod 10.2.1
Let me know if you need more information from me. Hopefully I can restart the phone so I can give you some version numbers.
Thanks everyone!

I didn't read everything but just wanted to say
VERY GOOD THREAD!
this is how threads should be done. Very descriptive, organized, told us everything you did and asked for help! Good job man! Only negative is it prolly should have gone in Q&A section but irregardless very good thread!
About your issue, I recommend flashing stock Odin tar file to everything back to stock and reroot and start over. Flashing stock will not lock it again it will remain unlocked. But should get you back up and fresh. Just be aware it will erase all your data and all of the internal SD card.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk

dokgu said:
Hello everyone,
I really need your help with my wife's Metro PCS Samsung GS4 M919N.
The thing is, we are now living outside the US so I had to unlock her phone. After ordering the unlock codes, I decided to root the phone and use a custom ROM while waiting for the codes.
That is why I found this guide here: androidforums.com/metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root/790899-metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root-guide.html
So while reading the guide, I aimed to have the following accomplished at the end:
Recovery: TWRP
Custom ROM: CyanogenMod 10.2.1
I then started doing the guide for the TWRP recovery by using Odin. I got the message saying that the flashing passed and went ahead to restart to recovery to install CM 10.2.1 as a custom ROM. The thing is that I keep on restarting to the stock recovery not TWRP. So I went to YouTube and found a video showing how to flash TWRP using GooManager. After following that guide, I went to restart to recovery and I successfully got into TWRP.
Now, to achieve my goal, all that's left to do is to flash CyanogenMod 10.2.1 (jfltetmo).
Before doing that, I decided to make a backup. After using TWRP to do a backup, I proceeded to installing the custom ROM + gapps (wiped with the default settings). Everything was working I think (I handed the phone to my wife so she was he one testing it). After some time, she decided she wants the stock ROM instead so I decided to download the androidforums.com/metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root/783769-rom-recovery-flash-able-stock-m919nuvuamf2-rooted-deodexed-rom.html ROM.
I flashed the newly downloaded ROM + gapps (same file). This time, I couldn't get the gapps to work probably because it was meant for another version. So I decided to just restore from the backup I created earlier.
So, the usual stuff. Wipe. Restore. Restart.
Seems to be going smoothly because my wife was happy to see the old ROM she was used to.
Until the phone started to restart on it's own. (It's pretty much downhill from here on out).
At first I thought it was just a random thing that probably would never happen again. I was wrong as it became more frequent as days went by.
Recently I can't just restart the phone, I would have to remove the battery and then restart it. Now, it's getting really hard to restart the phone. Please help me fix this. I prefer to leave the phone rooted, but if the fix unroots the phone then so be it, anyway my wife prefers the stock ROM so only the unlocking was necessary.
Metro PCS Samsung Galaxy S4 M919N
Recovery:
TWRP 2.6.3.1
ROMs:
Stock Metro PCS
CyanogenMod 10.2.1
Let me know if you need more information from me. Hopefully I can restart the phone so I can give you some version numbers.
Thanks everyone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with Elesbb. If the goal is jus tto get back to stock, just do an odin flash of the stock ROM. Be advised if you flash the latest Kit Kay update you will nto be able to go back to Jelly Bean. From your post it seems like you are partial to Jelly Bean. So if that's what you want, but sure you use the stock 4.3 ROM. You can find it around here on XDA somewhere with a quick search to make sure you have the right one.
As Elesbb said, you won't loose the 'sim unlock'. But you will lose root. However you can root the stock ROM just fine.
You might also consider one of the myriad of TouchWiz based custom ROMs. They are look just like TouchWiz that your wife wants, but have a lot of optimizations and options in them. Those should flash just like any ROM. If you still get the reboot issue then do the Odin back to stock, reroot, then flash the custom TW roms.
---------- Post added at 12:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:45 PM ----------

Thread cleaned.
Rather than bashing a ROM or user let's keep on topic and help the OP resolved the problems he's having. Arguing over the virtues of a ROM doesn't help anyone.
Thank you,
Rwilco12

Before posting this thread I sent the aforementioned guide's poster (arocker). He sent me a reply saying not to use gapps as the stock ROM for Metro PCS already comes with Google apps. I'll try his suggestion first and see if the phone still reboots a lot.
If the problem persists, I will try the solutions mentioned here. Thanks a lot!

elesbb said:
I didn't read everything but just wanted to say
VERY GOOD THREAD!
this is how threads should be done. Very descriptive, organized, told us everything you did and asked for help! Good job man! Only negative is it prolly should have gone in Q&A section but irregardless very good thread!
About your issue, I recommend flashing stock Odin tar file to everything back to stock and reroot and start over. Flashing stock will not lock it again it will remain unlocked. But should get you back up and fresh. Just be aware it will erase all your data and all of the internal SD card.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After trying arocker's suggestion to not flash gapps, the phone still reboots. So now, I am going to try your solution guys.
But before I do, I want to make sure that I am on the correct paths/links.
Here's what I found for the following:
ODIN
forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/themes-apps/27-08-2013-odin-3-09-odin-1-85-versions-t2189539
I've had a couple of chances to use ODIN but only using specific functions like flashing a recovery file while the phone is in download mode. I don't however have any experience using ODIN to put the phone back to stock where the phone gets unrooted. Having the phone unrooted is fine by me as I only needed to have the phone unlocked.
Any step-by-step guides for using ODIN for this specific purpose guys? I don't want to mess this up again.
Thanks and sorry for the trouble.

dokgu said:
After trying arocker's suggestion to not flash gapps, the phone still reboots. So now, I am going to try your solution guys.
But before I do, I want to make sure that I am on the correct paths/links.
Here's what I found for the following:
ODIN
forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/themes-apps/27-08-2013-odin-3-09-odin-1-85-versions-t2189539
I've had a couple of chances to use ODIN but only using specific functions like flashing a recovery file while the phone is in download mode. I don't however have any experience using ODIN to put the phone back to stock where the phone gets unrooted. Having the phone unrooted is fine by me as I only needed to have the phone unlocked.
Any step-by-step guides for using ODIN for this specific purpose guys? I don't want to mess this up again.
Thanks and sorry for the trouble.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No trouble at all, check out the stickies in the beginning of threads.
Look for guides similar to this.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2335109
Pp. Good luck.
sent from my bluetooth controlled toaster.

PanchoPlanet said:
No trouble at all, check out the stickies in the beginning of threads.
Look for guides similar to this.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2335109
Pp. Good luck.
sent from my bluetooth controlled toaster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello PanchoPlanet,
Thanks for the link. I went ahead and tried to unroot without Windows (Mobile Odin) as per the instructions on the link. I downloaded everything and went ahead to install the Mobile Odin APK. When I ran it to install the Flash Kernel, the app told me that the device is not supported.
To my understanding the guide is for M919 devices but should work for my wife's device as well (M919N - Metro PCS). I would like to try the guide for using Windows but I'm not really expecting for it to work or I might mess it up more. I'll try to search some more and provide the links where this forum will lead me to. But if you have any ideas, please let me know asap. Thanks!

PanchoPlanet said:
No trouble at all, check out the stickies in the beginning of threads.
Look for guides similar to this.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2335109
Pp. Good luck.
sent from my bluetooth controlled toaster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, here's what I found:
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2446497
It seems like the perfect thread for what I am trying to achieve. Will let you guys know if it is successful. But it will have to wait for tomorrow. Gonna catch some sleep.

Okay, I'm running out of options. I was able to flash the stock ROM using Odin 3.07. The recovery looks like it came back to the stock recovery as I no longer have TWRP installed. When I install Root Checker, I see that I am no longer rooted. That's good.
But my original problem is still here. The phone reboots a lot. The phone is so unstable that it is barely usable.
I am now going to try one more thing.
I have a Galaxy S4 (I337M) from Rogers Canada (my wife has Metro PCS M919N). Mine got rooted and has CyanogenMod 10.2.1 as a custom ROM. My phone is working perfectly while hers reboots a lot. I was thinking it was because of a faulty battery. So I am doing an experiment by swapping the batteries. So far no reboots have occurred, but I will continue to monitor this.
Any ideas why the battery is kinda messed up?

This thread talks about battery stuff and reboots:
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/530338/20131216/samsung-galaxy-s4-problems.htm
Batteries can go bad a lot of ways. Extreme temperature, factory defect, phone drops, moisture, etc.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Android_Monsters said:
This thread talks about battery stuff and reboots:
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/530338/20131216/samsung-galaxy-s4-problems.htm
Batteries can go bad a lot of ways. Extreme temperature, factory defect, phone drops, moisture, etc.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And 100% of the time, they eventually just get old.

dokgu said:
Okay, I'm running out of options. I was able to flash the stock ROM using Odin 3.07. The recovery looks like it came back to the stock recovery as I no longer have TWRP installed. When I install Root Checker, I see that I am no longer rooted. That's good.
But my original problem is still here. The phone reboots a lot. The phone is so unstable that it is barely usable.
I am now going to try one more thing.
I have a Galaxy S4 (I337M) from Rogers Canada (my wife has Metro PCS M919N). Mine got rooted and has CyanogenMod 10.2.1 as a custom ROM. My phone is working perfectly while hers reboots a lot. I was thinking it was because of a faulty battery. So I am doing an experiment by swapping the batteries. So far no reboots have occurred, but I will continue to monitor this.
Any ideas why the battery is kinda messed up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a wierd situation, by swapping batteries you basically performed a battery pull, which acts as a reset, that in it self may have cleared your issue.
Now if battery is bad that could be an unusual problem. Maybe just replacing the battery will be the end of your mystery.
Pp.
sent from my P5113 using TouchPal mind control keyboard. (Beta)

The battery should be brand new as the phone was just recently purchased this April.
Anyways, so far no reboots have happened and any instability has not been shown at all. Everything looks ok, yet.
Anyone know if it is safe to swap batteries? Our phones have different S4 models. I'm not sure what the implications would be. Also what is this battery pull which acts as a reset? We've been pulling the battery a lot of times but the reboot still happens but not when we swapped batteries.

The batteries are all the same. Don't worry about that.
Even if its a new battery if could have just been bad. A manufacturing defect perhaps.
Sent from your phone. You should be more careful where you leave that thing.

dokgu said:
The battery should be brand new as the phone was just recently purchased this April.
Anyways, so far no reboots have happened and any instability has not been shown at all. Everything looks ok, yet.
Anyone know if it is safe to swap batteries? Our phones have different S4 models. I'm not sure what the implications would be. Also what is this battery pull which acts as a reset? We've been pulling the battery a lot of times but the reboot still happens but not when we swapped batteries.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This battery thing is wacky, anyway swapping batteries should not be a problem, it's just an energy storage container. Pulling the battery isn't like powering down the phone or resetting/rebooting ,sometimes devs request a battery pull to get the proper wipe effect that reboots can't provide.
You inadvertently solved your problem by accident. That's a good thing.
Pp.
sent from my P5113 using TouchPal mind control keyboard. (Beta)

PanchoPlanet said:
You inadvertently solved your problem by accident. That's a good thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have quite literally solved the vast majority of my problems this way.
Its a preferred method.
Sent from your phone. You should be more careful where you leave that thing.

Sometimes it's that "total disconnect "of power that kind of gets all the ducks lined up in a row and everything flows in the dynaflow.
Good.
Pp.
sent from my P5113 using TouchPal mind control keyboard. (Beta)

its very important topics and it might seen for every galaxy s4 users.just wonderful topics.

This exact same thing happened on my mother's 6-month old S3. If you're still wondering, you could try putting the old battery and running a CPU stress test app. It should increase the current draw and trigger a shutdown.
EDIT: whoops, sorry to kind of zombie. Didn't check the date.
Sent from my Galaxy S4

[Q] Crashing apps and loss of service?!

Hey guys, long time browser, first time poster, but not a reason for celebration, alas.I come to you guys out of frustration after hours of being unable to solve my issue cruising the interwebs, and the thread title kinda says it all.
To start from the beginning, I recently delved into the rooted world by means of towelroot (kitkat 4.4.2), installed xposed framework, got the modules XBlast and XPrivacy, and you might have guessed, fiddled around with each. Everything was fine and dandy until I was having issues receiving/making calls through an app (LINE, if you know it), and so I attempted to figure out what the issue was, very much assuming XPrivacy to be the culprit. Couldn't get it to work, which is when I decided to restore my backup I made using Clockwork. Should have been nice and smooth sailing, but...
Upon having it "restored" I booted on into it, which is when I got smacked in the face; as soon as I'm booted, most, if not all, my apps are reporting that they have stopped working by a bombardment of error messages in endless succession, making just browsing the home screens almost impossible. Also with this barrage came the lack of cell service, a nice white n' slashed out circle in what should be my bars of signal. I tried again to restore my phone from my backup. Same issue, but I did notice during the recovery it made mention of something like "secure_android" missing? This sent me on my hours of head banging, turning up *possible* resolutions, which didn't work. I've tried flashing the stock bootloader, gapps, and nothing. Now, my data and apps are all still there and I can get into recovery without issue, it's just the pain of not being able to actually using any of it.
I have debugging switched on on my phone, but do not have some sort of adb app installed on it, nor could I access any market place to try. I'm not so sure I would be able to install anything on my phone given my current circumstances, anyway.
Please, if any of you out there have some idea as to what is going on, I'm all eyes (as ears on a forum don't work so well)! If there are any details I may have omitted and so on, just let me know and I'll supply it--
Thank you all so much in advance for any possible steps that may resolve this issue!

Fingerless said:
Hey guys, long time browser, first time poster, but not a reason for celebration, alas.I come to you guys out of frustration after hours of being unable to solve my issue cruising the interwebs, and the thread title kinda says it all.
To start from the beginning, I recently delved into the rooted world by means of towelroot (kitkat 4.4.2), installed xposed framework, got the modules XBlast and XPrivacy, and you might have guessed, fiddled around with each. Everything was fine and dandy until I was having issues receiving/making calls through an app (LINE, if you know it), and so I attempted to figure out what the issue was, very much assuming XPrivacy to be the culprit. Couldn't get it to work, which is when I decided to restore my backup I made using Clockwork. Should have been nice and smooth sailing, but...
Upon having it "restored" I booted on into it, which is when I got smacked in the face; as soon as I'm booted, most, if not all, my apps are reporting that they have stopped working by a bombardment of error messages in endless succession, making just browsing the home screens almost impossible. Also with this barrage came the lack of cell service, a nice white n' slashed out circle in what should be my bars of signal. I tried again to restore my phone from my backup. Same issue, but I did notice during the recovery it made mention of something like "secure_android" missing? This sent me on my hours of head banging, turning up *possible* resolutions, which didn't work. I've tried flashing the stock bootloader, gapps, and nothing. Now, my data and apps are all still there and I can get into recovery without issue, it's just the pain of not being able to actually using any of it.
I have debugging switched on on my phone, but do not have some sort of adb app installed on it, nor could I access any market place to try. I'm not so sure I would be able to install anything on my phone given my current circumstances, anyway.
Please, if any of you out there have some idea as to what is going on, I'm all eyes (as ears on a forum don't work so well)! If there are any details I may have omitted and so on, just let me know and I'll supply it--
Thank you all so much in advance for any possible steps that may resolve this issue!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like your backup was a downgrade (old version).
I would suggest doing a factory reset, test it. If that doesn't do it, use Odin to flash stock firmware (which can be found in the general section stickies).

BWolf56 said:
Sounds like your backup was a downgrade (old version).
I would suggest doing a factory reset, test it. If that doesn't do it, use Odin to flash stock firmware (which can be found in the general section stickies).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for responding! I did try a wipe data/factory reset via CWM, then restored from there. Didn't work. I'm not sure if there is a particular order in how it should be done such as "factory reset, reboot phone into recovery, restore" or if I should be able to get away with "factory reset, restore", the latter being what I did. I also got a hold of a bootloader file and modem base band for build I747UCUFNE4, if those would be useful in any way.
If it's of any help, I somehow got the Unofficial Omni ROM 4.4.4 to work without any issue, but not quite happy enough with the overall interface of it, yet slowly adapting having installed a touchwiz launcher just to hold me over.
I've tried locating the backup CWM created on my phone so that I could store it on my computer and generate another backup as from what I read, the unpaid version only allows you one at a time, but had no luck digging through my directories. I'm currently investigating this online nandroid backup thing to see if there's anything to it.
I've also come across some file labeled "I747UCUFNE4_Stock_Rooted_Deodex" which is a zip, but I'm reading ODIN uses tar as it's compression of choice? Does this mean I should flash this file via recovery, or? Also, the file size is a whopping 920MB or so... that normal? (Edit: this is where I found the file http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2788357 which says to flash in recovery)
Thanks again for your response! I was really thinking my problem would just be glanced over.

Fingerless said:
Thanks for responding! I did try a wipe data/factory reset via CWM, then restored from there. Didn't work. I'm not sure if there is a particular order in how it should be done such as "factory reset, reboot phone into recovery, restore" or if I should be able to get away with "factory reset, restore", the latter being what I did. I also got a hold of a bootloader file and modem base band for build I747UCUFNE4, if those would be useful in any way.
If it's of any help, I somehow got the Unofficial Omni ROM 4.4.4 to work without any issue, but not quite happy enough with the overall interface of it, yet slowly adapting having installed a touchwiz launcher just to hold me over.
I've tried locating the backup CWM created on my phone so that I could store it on my computer and generate another backup as from what I read, the unpaid version only allows you one at a time, but had no luck digging through my directories. I'm currently investigating this online nandroid backup thing to see if there's anything to it.
I've also come across some file labeled "I747UCUFNE4_Stock_Rooted_Deodex" which is a zip, but I'm reading ODIN uses tar as it's compression of choice? Does this mean I should flash this file via recovery, or? Also, the file size is a whopping 920MB or so... that normal? (Edit: this is where I found the file http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2788357 which says to flash in recovery)
Thanks again for your response! I was really thinking my problem would just be glanced over.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I meant factory reset without restoring.
But now that you're back up and running, there's no need for it (unless you flash another ROM). You could flash NE4 if you wanna get back on the official ROM but there are also tw custom ROM which you can look into (you're currently using an aosp one).
As for the 920mb, yeah.. That's Sammy at its best, bloating their ROMs.

BWolf56 said:
I meant factory reset without restoring.
But now that you're back up and running, there's no need for it (unless you flash another ROM). You could flash NE4 if you wanna get back on the official ROM but there are also tw custom ROM which you can look into (you're currently using an aosp one).
As for the 920mb, yeah.. That's Sammy at its best, bloating their ROMs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You think it would be safe to do a factory reset and try to restore just the data from my recovery? Or is it possible that the data is somehow the issue with everything going wonky?
I'm very new to the ROM thing, Omni was easy to get up and running, but actually playing with a ROM was more of a last ditch effort to see if the problem would be resolved that way and give any sort of indication as to what the issue was (still haven't the sllightest). It's currently not rooted (at least according to my root checker) and the towelroot method doesn't seem to work on it. I kinda need to be rooted if I wanted to make a nandroid, I really want to make a back up of what I currently have set in case I screw the pooch trying to get things back to "normal", yet I'm afraid of overwriting my only recovery and losing whatever data is embedded, though I'm not too deeply saddened by the thought of not having chat histories and whatnot, it would just be nice to have. Perhaps you have thoughts, or anyone else out there, on the matter? I know my first step would be to at least root my current ROM, then back up, I found this as a means to root Omni (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2672160), but how do I determine whether I'm using an ARM based or x86 based device?
Good to know the file size for the stock ROM is considered normal. I didn't even consider carrier/Samsung bloat to have such a huge impact.
Thanks, yet again!

Need S4 Rom advice!

Hello! Pretty new in XDA forum and I have a couple of questions and concerns. I was browsing through some threads and I was wondering if I could get some opinion/help from other members.
I have a second phone that I want to mod and I need some help.
Device: Samsung Galaxy S4 (ROOTED)
Model#: SGH-M919
Android Version: 4.4.4
Baseband: M919UVUFNK2
It's an old phone and lately, it's been running really slow and if possible, I'd like to make it run as if it was brand new or at least somewhat close. So the question is, are there any recommended stable roms/mods I could use and if there are/is, will I be able to use it with my rooted phone or do I have to completely factory reset it before I apply the mods/roms?
Thank you!

Hi @Mr.LinK,
Just yesterday I finally got sick of my M919 slow/battery drain/old stuff and decided it was time for a reset. I was running SlimKat from over a year ago and while it was a great ROM, I had accumulated so much crap that it was getting really bogged down. This just happens over time no matter what OS, no fault to Slim. But I was also looking to move to Lollipop. Here's what I did:
1. Backed up using several methodologies (full backup with TWRP just in case, then from Android I backed stuff up with Helium, and used Backup My Mobile for SMS/MMS etc., an EFS backup just in case, etc..)
2. From within Android, did a factory reset. This sent the phone into recovery, and it formatted the data partition.
3. Rebooted to recovery again, and used TWRP to manually format the media section, just in case something was left there. Then wiped everything except the external SD.
4. Used ODIN to flash the OH3 firmware onto my MDL M919, without letting reboot after (unchecked the reboot checkbox). Pulled battery, rebooted back into download mode again, and flashed OH3 a second time... this gets around some instance people have reported about incomplete upgrades of firmware and all sorts of issues... better safe than sorry.
5. Let phone boot into now 100 % stock OH3 Android 4.4.4. YEEEUKKK. Some part of me thought I would just root the thing and get rid of Samsung crapware, but just the sheer annoyance of the T-Mobile boot animation was enough to remind me why I left stock long ago. Anyway, I let it boot, and set it up minimally with just 1 Google account, not restoring from backup. To my surprise it found the ATT network (I'm an ATT user, not T-Mobile... I just prefer T-Mo phones because they have unlocked bootloaders) and APN no problem no effort from me. Usually I have to enter an APN.
6. I tested the phone out to make sure all systems were working. GPS, WIFI, Bluetooth, etc.. To my surprise, first time I ran the camera app, it applied a firmware patch. Sweet. I'm glad I went through this step. Coming from ancient MDL, I figured there might be some kinks like this. I let it sit on stock for a few hours while I did stuff with my kids.
7. Back home, I did a factory reset from within Android. Then I flashed the latest TWRP tar file (2.8.7.0) using ODIN, and in TWRP did a full wipe of everything again.
8. At this point I flashed Danvdh's GPE edition of Lollipop from here.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2539361
Installation went smoothly. It's a very basic set of apps that it comes with (Google play is there, but you have to download email/messaging apps from the store such as Gmail and Messaging, Maps, etc). I like this approach!
I've been gradually setting things back up, and am very happy with things so far. Haven't run into any problems yet. The nice pure GPE android experience is refreshing.

@Frankenscript Thanks for the information. I was reading the linked thread and it looks really good so I'll give it a try

Mr.LinK said:
@Frankenscript Thanks for the information. I was reading the linked thread and it looks really good so I'll give it a try
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Frankenscript said:
Good luck and let us know how it goes!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just completely flashed my phone with the ROM and I'm pretty happy with the outcome. No bloatware feels so nice. I've been tinkering with it for a while now and I haven't encountered any problems so far but I did notice that model number changed to GT-I9505G. I'm assuming that's normal since the rom is based off of another variant which makes sense, correct me if I'm wrong. Will this complicate future updates or other rom installation? If so, are there any ways of reverting back to the original model number?

Mr.LinK said:
I just completely flashed my phone with the ROM and I'm pretty happy with the outcome. No bloatware feels so nice. I've been tinkering with it for a while now and I haven't encountered any problems so far but I did notice that model number changed to GT-I9505G. I'm assuming that's normal since the rom is based off of another variant which makes sense, correct me if I'm wrong. Will this complicate future updates or other rom installation? If so, are there any ways of reverting back to the original model number?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm pretty sure we can change the reported model number by modifying the build.prop file. I just haven't poked around with it yet... I did ask the question in the thread and am waiting for a reply. I haven't had to do this kind of thing for over a year, and I forget the build.prop key that does it. But I had some concern that it might bork something else down the road so I decided to wait a bit. IT's just a cosmetic thing and I'm SOOO enjoying the experience right now.
Two little things I'm still fishing around for answers to:
-In the drop down quick access menu, I wish there was a sound/vibrate/mute toggle. I can make one with PowerToggles but maybe there's a way to adjust what's in the native one.
-Really silly, but the power off button when pressed just seems to ... power off the phone!? No option for restart / recovery. Maybe there's an option to set this somewhere; haven't checked.
Still, these are all minor things to sort out. Really, I think I'm very sold on GPE editions now thanks to Danvdh's work.
Marc

Just an update, my phone just rebooted twice in the last 5 mins or so. Was watching on my netflix and it randomly rebooted. Any idea what's causing it and how to prevent it from happening?

Mr.LinK said:
Just an update, my phone just rebooted twice in the last 5 mins or so. Was watching on my netflix and it randomly rebooted. Any idea what's causing it and how to prevent it from happening?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haven't seen random reboots. I think I got maybe one reboot since installing the ROM. Then again, I haven't put NF on the phone. I do know that Netflix app had some issues on my Shield tablet, and the manufacturer (Nvidia) came out with a patch... maybe it's something general in Lollipop?

Frankenscript said:
Two little things I'm still fishing around for answers to:
-In the drop down quick access menu, I wish there was a sound/vibrate/mute toggle. I can make one with PowerToggles but maybe there's a way to adjust what's in the native one.
-Really silly, but the power off button when pressed just seems to ... power off the phone!? No option for restart / recovery. Maybe there's an option to set this somewhere; haven't checked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both if those can be fixed with Xposed modules.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Free mobile app

Will look into doing this in a week or so. Thanks
Sent back in time via Android 9.0 TimeText feature.

Flashing 101: From Graduate to Moron (Need Help Flashing T800)

So, let me begin this tale with this disclaimer: I've worked with modding communities across a whole span of genres, from gaming to building computers. I will begin with the assumption that I am at fault in this case and I'm clearly doing something wrong. I've about reached the end of possibilities that I can explore on my own, so it's not like I tried one thing and gave up.
Once upon a time, I knew more about what I was doing than I do now. I first bought the T800 model several years ago, and the first thing I did was learn how to root it and flash CWM recovery. I went on all sorts of adventures with the device but never fully explored the potential; just installed awesome stuff that I thought I would use forever and got rid of bloatware and other useless crap. Flashforward to a few months ago, when I realized I had a really nice tablet that I had spent money on but didn't use like I had wanted to. I'm working more and more on audio mixing, and I wanted to install an app for the tablet that would allow me to remotely operate a mixing board. To my dismay, the app required an updated version of Android, and I hadn't a clue as to how to do that because the tablet was rooted and such and the thing wasn't going to update (was stuck on stock 4.4.2). I don't remember what I had done with it many years ago - at least not very well - and all I had learned was nearly gone. I refreshed a little, made a backup, checked to see what I had and noticed I still had the CWM recovery up, things were still rooted fine, and I was prime for flashing a new ROM and wiping everything. Found the Lineage ROM, slapped that puppy down, aaaand... Verification wasn't happening. Huh? It didn't even try to install, it just gave up and put the stock ROM back on. Tinkered with it for a second and thought, eh, whatever, I'll just let it update itself now that it's been wiped and everything. Only the device still wouldn't let me update it to Marshmallow or whatever update limit it's got.... Awesome... Did a little more research. Oh, my recovery is probably super out of date. Grabbed ODIN, slapped a brand spankin' new TWRP recovery that was geared for my device on it, and decided that I shouldn't go with Lineage. I'll just go with a stock Nougat ROM (can't post a link, but if it's important I can PM it to you if it's relevant).
Followed instructions to the T (as far as I'm aware) and this time did everything with a fresh new outlook into what I was doing. Flashed it, flashed GAPPS, aaaaaand.... Samsung logo won't go away.... -sigh-... Wiped it again, tried to make sure everything was wiped correctly, made sure everything was up to date. Tried again, but alas... Nothing working right for me.
Perhaps during this tale you've already picked up on something I royally messed up. Perhaps you're thinking, "Wow, how did this doofus not brick his tablet?" Am I getting old and stupid? Was there still research I missed? I started with the low road of easy modding and had to force myself to a higher road of deeper learning and STILL came up empty-handed, so now I'm asking this awesome community for a hand. I know you can't do this for me, but I'd appreciate a guiding light, or at the very least a link to an article that I really should have picked up on. Let me know if there's information I've missed that I should also be putting out, and thanks for reading regardless!

If I reached a point where I don't understand what's going on and I am banging my head against the wall, I would download the latest stock firmware for my device from sammobile and flash it with odin. If I recally it correctly, that would be the November 2016 security release of Marshmallow, the last Samsung provided. This should wipe away everything you have on the tablet. Then, if you need to flash root or alternative ROM, flash TWRP and proceed from there.

Akopps said:
If I reached a point where I don't understand what's going on and I am banging my head against the wall, I would download the latest stock firmware for my device from sammobile and flash it with odin. If I recally it correctly, that would be the November 2016 security release of Marshmallow, the last Samsung provided. This should wipe away everything you have on the tablet. Then, if you need to flash root or alternative ROM, flash TWRP and proceed from there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Much obliged for your response, I've been up for a bit hoping maybe the boot process would just take a while, but no luck there. In the meantime I've been trying a few different Lineage nightly builds and they all seem to result in the same problem; surely they can't all be messed up and it's obviously something I'm doing wrong. My last recourse is to do this terminal fix I found that worked for someone else, but I doubt I'd be that lucky. I will assume that the Nov 2016 Marshmallow release is a google search away (or am I just bad at finding things...), and I'll post back here either within the hour or tomorrow night when I have time to find this build. Again, thank you.

Merancapeman said:
Much obliged for your response, I've been up for a bit hoping maybe the boot process would just take a while, but no luck there. In the meantime I've been trying a few different Lineage nightly builds and they all seem to result in the same problem; surely they can't all be messed up and it's obviously something I'm doing wrong. My last recourse is to do this terminal fix I found that worked for someone else, but I doubt I'd be that lucky. I will assume that the Nov 2016 Marshmallow release is a google search away (or am I just bad at finding things...), and I'll post back here either within the hour or tomorrow night when I have time to find this build. Again, thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Download the appropriate MM version from below. Boot to recovery, factory reset, flash with Odin.
First boot will take around 10 minutes.
http://updato.com/firmware-archive-...xact=1&r=&v=Marshmallow(Android+6.0.1)&rpp=15

Merancapeman said:
So, let me begin this tale with this disclaimer: I've worked with modding communities across a whole span of genres, from gaming to building computers. I will begin with the assumption that I am at fault in this case and I'm clearly doing something wrong. I've about reached the end of possibilities that I can explore on my own, so it's not like I tried one thing and gave up.
Once upon a time, I knew more about what I was doing than I do now. I first bought the T800 model several years ago, and the first thing I did was learn how to root it and flash CWM recovery. I went on all sorts of adventures with the device but never fully explored the potential; just installed awesome stuff that I thought I would use forever and got rid of bloatware and other useless crap. Flashforward to a few months ago, when I realized I had a really nice tablet that I had spent money on but didn't use like I had wanted to. I'm working more and more on audio mixing, and I wanted to install an app for the tablet that would allow me to remotely operate a mixing board. To my dismay, the app required an updated version of Android, and I hadn't a clue as to how to do that because the tablet was rooted and such and the thing wasn't going to update (was stuck on stock 4.4.2). I don't remember what I had done with it many years ago - at least not very well - and all I had learned was nearly gone. I refreshed a little, made a backup, checked to see what I had and noticed I still had the CWM recovery up, things were still rooted fine, and I was prime for flashing a new ROM and wiping everything. Found the Lineage ROM, slapped that puppy down, aaaand... Verification wasn't happening. Huh? It didn't even try to install, it just gave up and put the stock ROM back on. Tinkered with it for a second and thought, eh, whatever, I'll just let it update itself now that it's been wiped and everything. Only the device still wouldn't let me update it to Marshmallow or whatever update limit it's got.... Awesome... Did a little more research. Oh, my recovery is probably super out of date. Grabbed ODIN, slapped a brand spankin' new TWRP recovery that was geared for my device on it, and decided that I shouldn't go with Lineage. I'll just go with a stock Nougat ROM (can't post a link, but if it's important I can PM it to you if it's relevant).
Followed instructions to the T (as far as I'm aware) and this time did everything with a fresh new outlook into what I was doing. Flashed it, flashed GAPPS, aaaaaand.... Samsung logo won't go away.... -sigh-... Wiped it again, tried to make sure everything was wiped correctly, made sure everything was up to date. Tried again, but alas... Nothing working right for me.
Perhaps during this tale you've already picked up on something I royally messed up. Perhaps you're thinking, "Wow, how did this doofus not brick his tablet?" Am I getting old and stupid? Was there still research I missed? I started with the low road of easy modding and had to force myself to a higher road of deeper learning and STILL came up empty-handed, so now I'm asking this awesome community for a hand. I know you can't do this for me, but I'd appreciate a guiding light, or at the very least a link to an article that I really should have picked up on. Let me know if there's information I've missed that I should also be putting out, and thanks for reading regardless!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello, Lineage dev for T800 here.
Did you flash the updated bootloader I link in the OP? Gotta be on the MM one for it to boot past that samsung logo
Can be flashed via ODIN, instructions are on there!
Lemme know if you get it!

DarkExistence said:
Hello, Lineage dev for T800 here.
Did you flash the updated bootloader I link in the OP? Gotta be on the MM one for it to boot past that samsung logo
Can be flashed via ODIN, instructions are on there!
Lemme know if you get it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just got back from work, about to test it out and will update on both situations (should one not work out). Regardless of the success, I'm genuinely honored that you guys are helping me in this process and I didn't expect such a warm and welcoming bit of support. Too often I see the "well any bloomin' idiot with enough IQ in his head to tie his shoe could have done this" comment, although I'm almost positive I'm going to get this fixed with your help and realize I've done something super stupid.

Welp, I'm a right idiot. I went with the first option, which was to attempt to flash a stock MM ROM. I followed akopps and ashyx' advice and went to that website where I believed I found the appropriate file and downloaded it. For some odd reason it took about 8 hours to download almost 2gb, which is odd because my net is faster than that. Anyway, I let it sit overnight so no issues there. A while ago I attempted to copy it over to my SD card, which was met with a slew of problems thanks to the copy process being cancelled multiple times. Maybe because the size of it? I had plenty of space. At any rate, it wasn't going to be an issue because I knew it was something I was probably doing wrong and would figure out later. I skipped and went straight toward DarkExistence's fix, which was to make sure I had the MM bootloader (I saw this instruction in your thread but at the time wasn't sure what it entailed and thought I was perfectly safe, and this was sadly before I learned more about what I was doing). Went through that process just in case, wiped, flashed the Lineage ROM , flashed GAPPS, rebooted, aaaand...
Bugger me, it worked.
So now I feel like a proper idiot. I hope this ends up in a google search down the line so other doofuses can stumble upon my own mistake and see that sometimes overlooking one simple thing can make all the difference. Will update in the future should anything change and I find myself doomed once more, but so far things seem tip-top. I checked to see if I could install the mixer remote app I had initially begun this journey for, and lo and behold it is now available for me to download! Now all that's left is to figure out how to root it, and voila! Thank you all so much, I am almost as relieved as I am embarrassed.

Develop Bugs

welcome