Develop Bugs

Android update!

Disclaimer: This worked on my phone. I am not responsible if your phone turns into an expensive brick.
I know this isn't quite the update everyone was waiting for I managed to pull the 2.3.6 OTA files. I also managed to figure out how to flash them. Turns out CWM 5 offers root adb access, everything we need to update and root this phone. Note I tried CWM 6 but it said "possible loss of root" so apparently CWM 6 likes to reside on an already rooted phone.
Note this is not the most elegant solution. The most elegant would be a signed update.zip. The second most elegant would be something flashable with CWM or Odin. Too bad I don't know how to do those. I do know how to do this.
The first thing to do is make sure you are on the AT&T stock firmware. It doesn't matter if you've already flashed something else. No need to wipe cache or factory reset or anything (although if you run into problems you should try to do that step). Download it from samfirmware.com. Flash it with Odin. This will put you on stock 2.3.5. Even if you were already on 2.3.6, or rooted, or on Rogers, this will work. After the flash, boot the phone normally, wait a minute or so, and shut it down.
Now for the fun part. AT&T will not push the OTA to a non AT&T customer. The flash will also not work with a modified phone (hence the reflash to stock). How to gain root access to manually flash the OTA? If we install root, it will not install. If we install CWM, we will not have the stock recovery which is required to process the OTA. So...
How about this? We install CWM 5. You can find it here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1458153
Then we adb into the phone, and push the OTA files, and then reflash the stock recovery over CWM, and then manually reboot into OTA mode. That sounds crazy... crazy enough to work.
After you've flashed CWM, reboot into it and make sure your phone is still connected to your computer. We won't actually be using CWM, just the root access it provides over adb. Unzip the two zip files below (why use external hosting, I can store zips up to 11 MB on here) into a folder and run fota.bat. Ooo and ahh over your Gingerbread.
But what about root? Well, I posted in another thread a complicated method for rooting 2.3.6 using the root access from CWM, but how about easy? Boot your phone into 2.3.6 and let it sit for a minute or so, and shut it down. Reboot into Odin mode, and reflash CWM over the stock recovery (again). Copy the Superuser zip from the folder you made earlier to your SD card. Flash this with CWM. This is the beta of Superuser 3.2, courtesy of Rom Manager. Download the stericson busybox app from the Market if you want busybox as well.
This was a fun way to kill a weekend

Throws a signature verification failed error.

Try again with the new method

Had a few mild scares. After flashing CWM on stock, it refused to boot into it but after 3 tries and my screen acting up upon boot, it finally booted into CWM. Launched the bat file and it went well. Upon booting up and entering the update process, it froze up at 74% and refused to continue. Rebooted the phone and it once again entered the update process and this time it managed to finish. Phone rebooted and after checking "About phone", my phone is on 2.3.6 stock. When you initially provided the OTA files and the sig check failed, I had a good feeling this would be the only other way to do it as I tried to sign it and it also failed. Thanks for taking the time to post all of this.

Why go to 2.3.6? It´s better than 2.3.5 customized?

Better question: we're getting ICS within the month, so why bother with 2.3.6 when you can just upgrade to 4.x.x when it comes down?
-Ara

AraDreamer said:
Better question: we're getting ICS within the month, so why bother with 2.3.6 when you can just upgrade to 4.x.x when it comes down?
-Ara
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because there are some people who will want to stick with 2.3.5/6 . He made this so that those who do, can update to 2.3.6 even when they aren't with AT&T, almost hassle free.

narume said:
Had a few mild scares. After flashing CWM on stock, it refused to boot into it but after 3 tries and my screen acting up upon boot, it finally booted into CWM. Launched the bat file and it went well. Upon booting up and entering the update process, it froze up at 74% and refused to continue. Rebooted the phone and it once again entered the update process and this time it managed to finish. Phone rebooted and after checking "About phone", my phone is on 2.3.6 stock. When you initially provided the OTA files and the sig check failed, I had a good feeling this would be the only other way to do it as I tried to sign it and it also failed. Thanks for taking the time to post all of this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I was testing this, I saw that behavior if you didn't completely boot up the phone between steps (ie, flash stock firmware, boot phone, flash CWM, boot phone). I don't know what would cause it otherwise. Glad to see your phone made it.

narume said:
Because there are some people who will want to stick with 2.3.5/6 . He made this so that those who do, can update to 2.3.6 even when they aren't with AT&T, almost hassle free.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually I did it because I've owned this phone for exactly two weeks and discovered all the available ROMs are based on 2.3.5 even though 2.3.6 has been out since December. CWMR with root has been out since January, and since then nobody else has rooted 2.3.6 or found a way to flash it. And I thought, it couldn't be that hard? And even more amazed when I discovered CWMR comes with root out of the box, without even touching /system. The only other missing piece was the stock recovery, which also wasn't out in the wild. 3 birds for one stone
On a side note, if you want to do some cleaning after the OTA and you decide to root, you can delete /cache/fota and /data/fota safely.

Nardholio said:
Actually I did it because I've owned this phone for exactly two weeks and discovered all the available ROMs are based on 2.3.5 even though 2.3.6 has been out since December. CWMR with root has been out since January, and since then nobody else has rooted 2.3.6 or found a way to flash it. And I thought, it couldn't be that hard? And even more amazed when I discovered CWMR comes with root out of the box, without even touching /system. The only other missing piece was the stock recovery, which also wasn't out in the wild. 3 birds for one stone
On a side note, if you want to do some cleaning after the OTA and you decide to root, you can delete /cache/fota and /data/fota safely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, I see. Well, still, being able to flash to 2.3.6 is nice because if anyone ever decides to stick with 2.3.6 they can easily flash the update now. Maybe more people like you will pop up and start pushing out more useful content like this for the Glide so it won't be a dead area of development anymore.

Will Root prevent OTA's?

I thought I read that it will prevent them.
Or is it just a custom recovery (CWM) that will prevent them?
I just wanted to make sure I get 4.2 on day one one is released.

That is one of the greatest mysteries of the Common Era, especially since there at least 50 past threads on this subject, and yet it is impossible to find an answer (apparently)...
BTW - you do realize that with a rooted phone and custom recovery you can actually flash what the hell you like, and don't have to wait for someone to push it to you...?

Yes, I realize that you can flash broken or preview builds of new releases...or nightlies with broken features.
I'm interested in stable builds only.
That's why I'm asking.

With the Galaxy Nexus, the dev teams usually have the OTA available to flash within a day of it hitting. You will typically get it from devs before your device will let you OTA.
Root users (especially on nexus devices) always get it first!
Another good thing about Nexus is that its gonna be a stable release.

Rooting doesn't prevent OTAs. Now a custom recovery on the other hand will stop automatic install but it will still download and try.

Root itself doesn't stop an OTA. Custom recovery, different radios, and changed/modified/removed system apps/files do.

Ruggerxpunk said:
I thought I read that it will prevent them.
Or is it just a custom recovery (CWM) that will prevent them?
I just wanted to make sure I get 4.2 on day one one is released.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also agree that it's CWM that prevents the OTA update from being written to your Nexus. Yesterday I was in the same situation as you (unlocked bootloader and rooted) with stock Jelly Bean 4.1.1. I downloaded the new 4.1.2 file from google and followed these excellent instructions:
(had to remove link....not enough posts...go figure)
The mistake I made yesterday, even though I had an existing BU made by Titatium Pro, I didn't copy that BU to my PC so I didn't get my apps data updated (messed up a game, email configuration, groove ip, google voice)....learned on that one:>)

martonikaj said:
Root itself doesn't stop an OTA. Custom recovery, different radios, and changed/modified/removed system apps/files do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This.
If you root and remove system apks like Google plus or currents, any ota update will fail to install, even on stock recovery with locked boot loader.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

More accurately, it's the update script that stops the install of OTA's.
OTA's are typically a patched update, rather than a full update (meaning they only update parts of the OS). The OTA's are typically designed and tested to update X to Y, and are not designed for U, V or W to Y. In order to make sure that the update is actually updating X, and not U, V or W, the install script makes certain hash tab type checks on items such as Recovery, specific system apps, and even the Bootloader. Files that get added to the system, such as su and SuperSu, busybox, etc, are not typically checked for their presence during the install process.
Not every OTA is the same, and not not every install script is the same. Past experience shows that Recovery, system apps, and sometimes Bootloader need to be un-modified for the script to pass its checks and balances, but there's no guarantee that this will be the case for the next update. On the Nexus One, it threw everyone for a loop when the updates started checking the Bootloader for the first time, especially since a lot of people were deliberately trying to avoid updating to a particularly restrictive Bootloader (which was probably restrictive for a reason, hence the check to make sure it was being used). I used to modify the updates to remove certain checks; when I wanted to use an alternate Recovery for example. Removing the checks would allow the update to install, regardless of the changes - of course, you had to know the risks.
The real answer is that you never know what an update is going to check, and hence you will never know what will make it fail.
I recommend pulling apart an update to see what it is doing, and then there will be less guesswork and speculation...
No offence to adrynalyne, martonikaj, etc - who I know know their shizzle

Well, I was speaking more on behalf of the updater function rebooting but not able to get a 3rd party recovery to actually install the update package; I am guessing because the command it sends to recovery is invalid for the custom recovery. But you can reboot to the custom recovery and manually install it.
I've never investigated past that.
And definitely no offense taken. I am always open for being corrected or learning new things

adrynalyne said:
I am guessing because the command it sends to recovery is invalid for the custom recovery. But you can reboot to the custom recovery and manually install it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm glad you mentioned that. A lot of people either assume or are given the impression that a custom recovery actually prevents an OTA update, when it really just prevents the update from happening automatically. It's an important distinction to someone who wants to learn and understand the process. I've seen people flash back to stock recovery so they could get an OTA update, then flash back to their custom recovery... instead of just booting into their custom recovery and choosing the update zip.

phazerorg said:
I'm glad you mentioned that. A lot of people either assume or are given the impression that a custom recovery actually prevents an OTA update, when it really just prevents the update from happening automatically. It's an important distinction to someone who wants to learn and understand the process. I've seen people flash back to stock recovery so they could get an OTA update, then flash back to their custom recovery... instead of just booting into their custom recovery and choosing the update zip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Another important distinction.

danger-rat said:
+1
Another important distinction.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great info in this thread....thanks to all!

I can cofirm receiving OTAs on rooted devices (not the GNex though), and the only issue I ran into was frozen apps. As long as I unfroze them before flashing, and had the stock recovery. I had not issue (LG Ally and Asus TF201)

Reverting Rooted Fire TV (2nd Gen) to Stock?

So I managed to root my 2nd generation Fire TV, and rather than doing the proper research, I downloaded and installed the stericson BusyBox Installer .apk from the Play Store (play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stericson.busybox&hl=en). Seemed to work fine, but when I was looking into installing DropBear/BusyDrop and found it would be easier to use adbfire to install system tools and I no longer needed sericson's BusyBox. Well, not having spent much time with Android in general, I failed to realize how badly that uninstall was capable of going, and I have managed to mess things up reasonably badly.
So, naturally, I would like to revert to stock and start the process over. Seemed simple enough. I followed this guide (not written for the 2nd gen aftv):
aftvnews.com/how-to-unroot-a-fire-tv-and-switch-back-to-stock-updates-from-amazon/
(Appears I am unable to post links, as this is my first post here.)
Unfortunately, I've run into at least one problem, and very possibly two. The major problem is that the cache partition on the 2nd gen Fire TV is only 242.1M, while the stock image is ~470M. So I can't push the update image to the cache partition. I tried pushing it to /sdcard/, but didn't have any luck with recovering from there either. This leads me to the second problem, the guide is obviously written for the 1st gen Fire TV, and the contents of my system differ from those indicated in the guide. Where the guide indicates to push the image to "/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/recovery", I am finding "/dev/block/platform/mtk-msdc.0/by-name/recovery". I did push the recovery image to the path present on my system, but I am not sure whether to believe that recovery is failing to work because of the differences between the 1st and 2nd gen Fire TVs or because I am forced to push the update.zip to /sdcard/ rather than /cache/. I did modify the /cache/recovery/command file to reflect the new location of update.zip ("echo –update_package=/sdcard/update.zip > /cache/recovery/command").
Anyway, at this point, there's not a ton of documentation available on reverting the 2nd generation Fire TV back to stock, so I am hoping somebody with more familiarity with Android and the Fire TV can toss me a line (or a link).
Thanks,
William

Edit: Okay, so I found the correct images for my device on zeroepoch's site. I'm assuming at this point that system.orig.img is the update.zip (it's currently downloading), and I now know that I was definitely using the wrong recovery image for my system. Still, I will not be able to put the update.zip in /cache/ because of the space limitation on my system. Once I load the correct recovery image, will I be able to follow the steps here (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2799779) and just perform a factory wipe/reset?
Thanks!

fecaleagle said:
Edit: Okay, so I found the correct images for my device on zeroepoch's site. I'm assuming at this point that system.orig.img is the update.zip (it's currently downloading), and I now know that I was definitely using the wrong recovery image for my system. Still, I will not be able to put the update.zip in /cache/ because of the space limitation on my system. Once I load the correct recovery image, will I be able to follow the steps here (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2799779) and just perform a factory wipe/reset?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't use recovery at this point to revert an AFTV2 to stock so that thread will not work. It's also not an update zip it's a full /system partition image. You need to dd the image as root to revert. Actually if you are just trying to get to a clean rooted state you should dd the rooted image instead of the stock one.
There are some guides that cover the dd steps with the images, for example the first post of the root thread, along with other comments about it depending on what version you are on etc.

ImCoKeMaN said:
You can't use recovery at this point to revert an AFTV2 to stock so that thread will not work. It's also not an update zip it's a full /system partition image. You need to dd the image as root to revert. Actually if you are just trying to get to a clean rooted state you should dd the rooted image instead of the stock one.
There are some guides that cover the dd steps with the images, for example the first post of the root thread, along with other comments about it depending on what version you are on etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this! I'm really glad to know that recovery is off the table for my model (in the sense that I can move on to an approach that works) and also relieved that I can simply flash the entire rooted image with dd. I am reasonably comfortable with dd, so I will seek out the guide and go that route. Very much appreciated.
I've rooted Androids in the past but never owned one, so it's been a bit of an adjustment for me. Looking forward to getting another chance to take my time and get somewhat closer to doing it right this time around.
-William
Edit: Just read through the relevant section of the original guide and will be pushing and dd'ing the rooted image from @zeroepoch. Thank you so much for your help.
Assuming adbfire is not yet fully compatible with the aftv2, is the better approach to simply use the busybox build on @zeroepoch's page? My goal is to get DropBear or any sshd running at boot time so that I'm not limited to accessing it with adb and have the option of using an ssh client app as a terminal on my television. I will relocate these questions to other threads if I am unable to find reasonable answers to them by searching and RTFM. Thanks again for everything.

Thanks for this, I was running into the same issues you were seeing with the cache partition being too small. I'm trying to get a custom recovery installed so I was trying to downgrade to an earlier version.
Is there any way to get custom recovery working on the ftv2?

thepacketslinger said:
Thanks for this, I was running into the same issues you were seeing with the cache partition being too small. I'm trying to get a custom recovery installed so I was trying to downgrade to an earlier version.
Is there any way to get custom recovery working on the ftv2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wasn't overly concerned with loading custom recovery, and @ImCoKeMaN seems to suggest that there aren't any options yet for aftv2, but dd'ing the rooted image gave me a rooted stock image, and that was all I was looking for. It is a bit of a concern though, because it basically means you're hosed if the system won't boot. I was unable to get it to boot into recovery mode at all, but that may be because I tried to install ClockWorkMod with adbfire. I have not checked on it since the restore, but I was just pleased to be able to flash a rooted or stock image back onto the device.
I'm assuming we'll just have to be careful until custom recovery for aftv2 becomes a reality. I'm using @zeroepoch's busybox binary as well, and everything is going smoothly this time around.

thepacketslinger said:
Thanks for this, I was running into the same issues you were seeing with the cache partition being too small. I'm trying to get a custom recovery installed so I was trying to downgrade to an earlier version.
Is there any way to get custom recovery working on the ftv2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am working on recovery. Should have something out soon. Although I don't know what you are going to downgrade to.

rbox said:
I am working on recovery. Should have something out soon. Although I don't know what you are going to downgrade to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gotcha. I was only looking to downgrade as a path to getting recovery installed, but it looks like that's not an option. Thanks for clearing that up!

Wondering if there is any updates on this. Currently have TWRP and a rooted ROM on my AFT2, and I'm throwing in the towel with its impossible interface and user/dev hostile environment. Looking to return it to factory for refund.

Removing TWRP

Hi all
A couple of weeks ago I upgraded my rooted gen 1 fire tv to os 5 software and used twrp (previously using clockwork mod as per guides online). Anyway, it worked but i dont think i blocked updates and have since updated to OS 5.2.1.0 and appear to have lost root. No biggie since i didnt use it anyway.
One thing which is really annoying though is that 1-2 times a day ill turn the tv on and the fire tv has reset and is on the twrp screen. I fix this by unplugging the power and the fire tv reboots to its normal homescreen. Im just wondering what is an easy fix for this? Can i get rid of twrp? Do i do a reset of some form? I dont want to lose all my apps and kodi if possible.
I assume it is doing this for a particular reason, maybe looking for updates or something? I havent blocked updates at my router and really dont care too much anymore and am happy to run stock.
Cheers

cbarre said:
Hi all
A couple of weeks ago I upgraded my rooted gen 1 fire tv to os 5 software and used twrp (previously using clockwork mod as per guides online). Anyway, it worked but i dont think i blocked updates and have since updated to OS 5.2.1.0 and appear to have lost root. No biggie since i didnt use it anyway.
One thing which is really annoying though is that 1-2 times a day ill turn the tv on and the fire tv has reset and is on the twrp screen. I fix this by unplugging the power and the fire tv reboots to its normal homescreen. Im just wondering what is an easy fix for this? Can i get rid of twrp? Do i do a reset of some form? I dont want to lose all my apps and kodi if possible.
I assume it is doing this for a particular reason, maybe looking for updates or something? I havent blocked updates at my router and really dont care too much anymore and am happy to run stock.
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The device shouldn't be restarting by itself at all, let alone that often. Maybe wipe and reflash the ROM?

I figured it was something to do with it looking for updates but was surprised that It kept happening even after upgrading to a non pre-rooted rom.
Can I still flash a rom even if I don't have root? Which rom do I do?what the fire TV currently has ? Is there any way of just removing twrp?

cbarre said:
I figured it was something to do with it looking for updates but was surprised that It kept happening even after upgrading to a non pre-rooted rom.
Can I still flash a rom even if I don't have root? Which rom do I do?what the fire TV currently has ? Is there any way of just removing twrp?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds to me like it downloaded a stock update but never installed it. You're seeing it sitting on TWRP randomly because after downloading an OTA update, the Fire TV reboots into stock recovery to install the update. Since your stock recovery has been replaced by TWRP, the OTA update is rebooting into TWRP and just sitting there because rbox made it so TWRP wont install OTA updates.
If you want to have a rooted device, install the latest pre-rooted ROM (5.2.1.1) from within TWRP and block updates. You'll also want to follow the "If your device is rooted and still powered on" section of this guide to clear the pending OTA update that's causing the reboots.
If you want to unroot, remove TWRP, and go back to stock, then follow this guide.

I have tried to follow the guide to unroot as suggested at the bottom, but when i go to install in twrp it says "updater process ended with ERROR: 255" "Error installing zip file '/sdcad/sloane-5.0.4-rooted_r2.zip'
Any thoughts?

cbarre said:
I have tried to follow the guide to unroot as suggested at the bottom, but when i go to install in twrp it says "updater process ended with ERROR: 255" "Error installing zip file '/sdcad/sloane-5.0.4-rooted_r2.zip'
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SOrry, but I'm not familiar with that error. The only things I can suggest are wiping everything except system from within TWRP and then trying again. Otherwise, maybe @rbox can help.

Could it be that gen2 roms don't work on gen1?

hmm, dont know. Is there a Gen 1 option?

Don't know as i don't have a gen1 device. If i was you i would just upgrade to the latest prerooted rom and follow AFTVnews guide to remove any pending ota.
Afterwards you can block future ota's by issuing following command as root:
Code:
pm disable com.amazon.device.software.ota

WheelchairArtist said:
Could it be that gen2 roms don't work on gen1?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cbarre said:
hmm, dont know. Is there a Gen 1 option?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not quite sure what would happen if you tried installing a Gen 2 ROM on a Gen 1 Fire TV, but you definitely shouldn't be doing it.
Fire TV 1 pre-rooted ROMs are here.
Fire TV 2 pre-rooted ROMs are here.
It's odd that you say you installed an OTA update that removed root, yet you still have TWRP. OTA updates are incremental (partial) updates. Before installing, they check system and/or recovery to make sure everything is on the up-and-up. If the device is rooted, the check fails and the device will then download a full version of the latest update that includes stock recovery. So, going by everything I've observed, either you lose root and TWRP simultaneously, or the OTA update doesn't install. If you really did install an OTA update, lose root, and NOT lose TWRP, then it seems somehow you installed an incremental OTA update on a pre-rooted ROM. I don't know how to proceed from here because I've never heard of this happening and in theory it shouldn't ever happen.

WheelchairArtist said:
Could it be that gen2 roms don't work on gen1?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I should have put an /s in that post
My advice would be the same as the one from AFTVnews. Just don't try do install a gen2 rom even though it shouldn't work.
Edit: Forgot this one: "updater process ended with ERROR: 255" "Error installing zip file '/sdcad/sloane-5.0.4-rooted_r2.zip'
As you see it doesn't work anyway.
AFTVnews.com said:
If you really did install an OTA update, lose root, and NOT lose TWRP, then it seems somehow you installed an incremental OTA update on a pre-rooted ROM. I don't know how to proceed from here because I've never heard of this happening and in theory it shouldn't ever happen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If this would be the case he could still install any prerooted rom since he still has trwp and so a working custom recovery. In the worst case he needs to wipe data/cache or something like that after flashing.
And so my advice would be: flash latest prerooted, keep root, follow your guide to clean pending ota or wipe data, block further ota's and profit.
I don't know how Rbox implemented this on gen1 but he could also try to install for example the first official full ota (not incremental) to android 5 manually in twrp to make sure the recovery returns to stock as well. But that is just off the top of my head, don't know if this works that way.

Someone has the recovery files for the Firetv Stick 4k, i need to remove twrp because i send it back to amazon

test10000001 said:
Someone has the recovery files for the Firetv Stick 4k, i need to remove twrp because i send it back to amazon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just flash original boot.img from the stock rom.

Use TWRP to flash 8.1 update

I feel like I should know how to do this and I just can't think right now...
I have 8.0 and the latest TWRP installed. Root with Magisk as well. I want to update to 8.1 but I don't want to have to factory reset the phone by flashing 8.1 to it and then reflashing root & TWRP. There's a way to do this that I'm not thinking of, right?
I read another post about using FlashFire but regardless of where I put the factory image, the app doesn't see it. So I feel like I'm at a loss right now.
Am I missing something? Thanks in advance!

WyldOne91 said:
I feel like I should know how to do this and I just can't think right now...
I have 8.0 and the latest TWRP installed. Root with Magisk as well. I want to update to 8.1 but I don't want to have to factory reset the phone by flashing 8.1 to it and then reflashing root & TWRP. There's a way to do this that I'm not thinking of, right?
I read another post about using FlashFire but regardless of where I put the factory image, the app doesn't see it. So I feel like I'm at a loss right now.
Am I missing something? Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is how I upgraded to 8.1, my setup before I upgraded was the same as yours.
1. Bootloader and unlock_critical both unlocked?
2. Download and extract the factory image, and place all contents in your SDK platform tools folder.
3. Edit the flash-all.bat file and remove the -w in the last line of code. (This prevents your data from being wiped)
4. Double click the flash-all.bat file to start the process. It'll take a little while, so be patient.
5. Once it's done, get back to bootloader mode.
6. Flash the twrp.img file. This will take you to temporary twrp.
7. Once in twrp, flash the twrp.zip, then flash custom kernel.zip(optional) then flash your magisk.zip.
8. Reboot and done.
Couple of caveats, make sure your using a good USB transfer cable, and it's recommended to remove your finger print and/or password/pin, and uninstall any themes you have installed. Hope all goes well for you :good:

Badger50 said:
This is how I upgraded to 8.1, my setup before I upgraded was the same as yours.
1. Bootloader and unlock_critical both unlocked?
2. Download and extract the factory image, and place all contents in your SDK platform tools folder.
3. Edit the flash-all.bat file and remove the -w in the last line of code. (This prevents your data from being wiped)
4. Double click the flash-all.bat file to start the process. It'll take a little while, so be patient.
5. Once it's done, get back to bootloader mode.
6. Flash the twrp.img file. This will take you to temporary twrp.
7. Once in twrp, flash the twrp.zip, then flash custom kernel.zip(optional) then flash your magisk.zip.
8. Reboot and done.
Couple of caveats, make sure your using a good USB transfer cable, and it's recommended to remove your finger print and/or password/pin, and uninstall any themes you have installed. Hope all goes well for you :good:
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Cool thank you I will give this a shot later tonight! One question, what is "unlock_critical?" I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere else before.

WyldOne91 said:
Cool thank you I will give this a shot later tonight! One question, what is "unlock_critical?" I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere else before.
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The pic is from the Google factory image page. Unlock_critical must be performed on the P2XL to allow the bootloader to be updated with future monthly security or software updates. This does not apply to the standard P2. Be advised, this WILL wipe your phone. However, you really don't have much choice if you want to flash monthly factory images.

Badger50 said:
The pic is from the Google factory image page. Unlock_critical must be performed on the P2XL to allow the bootloader to be updated with future monthly security or software updates. This does not apply to the standard P2. Be advised, this WILL wipe your phone. However, you really don't have much choice if you want to flash monthly factory images.
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Oh crap... I only ran the OEM unlock. Welp, looks like I'm going to end up wiping anyways. Thanks for the info though. This is definitely one of those situations where I assumed I knew what I was doing and ran with it without actually reading the process.

WyldOne91 said:
Oh crap... I only ran the OEM unlock. Welp, looks like I'm going to end up wiping anyways. Thanks for the info though. This is definitely one of those situations where I assumed I knew what I was doing and ran with it without actually reading the process.
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No problem my friend. There's a lot to learn on these new pixel devices. There are plenty threads on these forum with tons of info on whatever topic you may have questions about. Just takes time, patience, lots of reading, and a willingness to learn :good:

WyldOne91 said:
Oh crap... I only ran the OEM unlock. Welp, looks like I'm going to end up wiping anyways. Thanks for the info though. This is definitely one of those situations where I assumed I knew what I was doing and ran with it without actually reading the process.
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Since you are rooted, and already have the mindset that all is or will be lost you have the opportunity to try a couple options that if fail nothing lost...
After doing away with screen security and any themes, do Full backup in TWRP and also use TiBu to back up all your apps and then move them off the phone until after you do your thing.
After you do the critical unlock and get 8.1 installed and rooted you could try restoring the TWRP data partition and see what happens. Worst case it's either not booting or just acting funky. Do a factory wipe and not much lost.
Or... Use TiBu to save some time restoring all your apps. While I have had pretty good luck with restoring data on most apps, a few either won't restore or are boned in some way. Some other folks had a really hard time with restoring data so maybe just restore the apps without data. I run over 100 apps and have been through some version of this many times while playing around. With my crappy internet out here in the boonies it took 4 hours for google to restore all my apps and that's with hardly no data. It took about 20 minutes to restore most everything through TiBu. I would not restore data in the big initial bulk restore but instead go back and cherry pick the data restore on the things you need.
Again worst case all lost but you assumed that anyway and maybe you can save some time and effort if either option works.

Badger50 said:
No problem my friend. There's a lot to learn on these new pixel devices. There are plenty threads on these forum with tons of info on whatever topic you may have questions about. Just takes time, patience, lots of reading, and a willingness to learn :good:
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Yeah for sure. I'm always willing to learn!
CyberpodS2 said:
Since you are rooted, and already have the mindset that all is or will be lost you have the opportunity to try a couple options that if fail nothing lost...
After doing away with screen security and any themes, do Full backup in TWRP and also use TiBu to back up all your apps and then move them off the phone until after you do your thing.
After you do the critical unlock and get 8.1 installed and rooted you could try restoring the TWRP data partition and see what happens. Worst case it's either not booting or just acting funky. Do a factory wipe and not much lost.
Or... Use TiBu to save some time restoring all your apps. While I have had pretty good luck with restoring data on most apps, a few either won't restore or are boned in some way. Some other folks had a really hard time with restoring data so maybe just restore the apps without data. I run over 100 apps and have been through some version of this many times while playing around. With my crappy internet out here in the boonies it took 4 hours for google to restore all my apps and that's with hardly no data. It took about 20 minutes to restore most everything through TiBu. I would not restore data in the big initial bulk restore but instead go back and cherry pick the data restore on the things you need.
Again worst case all lost but you assumed that anyway and maybe you can save some time and effort if either option works.
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Yeah I actually already ran a backup with Titanium Backup and moved it to my PC last night just in case I did something stupid haha but I appreciate the tips!