Checking the forum for the pass 2 days but can't really get satisfaction answer:
I have just unlock my bootloader but not yet rooted.
I would prefer to have the standard ROM instead of the customer ROM at this moment, question below:
a) If I do not rooted my phone, do I able to update through OTA as normal? (my ROM still on 1.28 and wish to wait for the 1.29 to solve the SD card missing issue). Do I need to relock it back first?
b) If I decided to rooted my phone, can I still get the full update (including Radio.....?) Do I must use the RUU file to do the update.
Sorry if above question seems stupid as I'm totally new to Android system.
Phonix
OTA - You may BRICK your phone if you have a modified recovery(TWRP,etc) and you try to take an OTA.
OTA will fail if magisk is present.
see
https://forum.xda-developers.com/mo...p-flashing-t3813498/post77011495#post77011495
bump
hello
bumpsi
It is well known since ages, at least since Android 4 where this block oriented OTA was first implemented, that OTA will fail if recovery, boot or system partition is modified. Any root solution modifies at least boot or system and will prevent OTA to run through. Modified recovery should also stop the OTA (do not flash TWRP since long time, so I am not that sure about this on newer Android, at least until Android 6 Lollipop it did).
So: No one could ever successfully take OTA without uninstalling root and twrp if installed. This is valid and well known for nearly all Android devices, not only Motorola. It is known.
Brick on Moto devices is dangerous. It happens if you downgrade your system, but bootloader never is able to get downgraded. So the OTA tries to update the bootloader assuming it is old, but it already is current. This may result in a hard brick where flashing is not possible anymore. You are on the safe side if you do not restore a backup of a system with a previous bootloader, and do not flash older firmware.
So: No one is supposed to brick the Motorola smartphone via OTA if no firmware downgrade ever is done.
Just doing OTA with root will NOT do a greater harm than a failed OTA. There will be some installation log mentioning "there is partition xyz modified, I will not install the OTA". The system will run as before without update. If it doesn't because of some error in the update mechanism, it will suffice to flash the currently installed or some newer firmware to recover the device, there should occur no brick. Root is not the reason for brick in combination with OTA. Older firmware is.
So: What is your reason to bump this wrong worded warning?
KrisM22 said:
bumpsi
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Click to collapse
Kris, please stop spamming the forum. You bumped two threads, repeatedly
many thanks for bumping this important post!
interesting sig.
So..
My note's battery is pretty bad now, if I use a drawing software it will sometimes go from like 50% to 15% in minutes and then immediately after to 5%. I am almost 100% sure it is due a battery replacement but, since I always wanted to try rooting it I thought to do this as well anyway and see if it gets better.
(I've rooted my galaxy s4 a few times in the past but it was really long ago, so I somewhat understand what needs to be done but just need confirmation lol).
I plan to insteall Lineage OS 14.1 on it.
Question: it says that to do so you need to have a lollipop bootloader. Then it says "If the last Samsung ROM you had was 5.1 Touchwiz, you already have lollipop bootloader and don't need to follow these steps.".
I am on 5.1.1 as this never received any further update. On Droid Info it says: Bootloader P600UEUDQF1. OS version Lollipop MR1 (5.1.1).
So, I don't need to follow that step, right? I know, it's the dumbest question ever but I am not sure about it still.
Secondly... someone just please kindly confirm these are the correct steps:
1- (if needed) do the bootloader thing
2- install twrp. On the guide it says it must be ShevT's from here:
As far as I understood from the guide, rom already has root so I don't need that
3- factory reset from twrp
4- flash rom from twrp
5- flash gapps from twrp
Done?
Am I missing something?
Thank you a lot for taking time to confirm this
Question related to "After updating, you will not be able to downgrade..." message
Hope you guys are safe and well.
Currently my A50 on August update. I have no problems with this update but I like to update to Android 10 for additional features. I'm reluctant to update because of this message. I'm afraid that if I had problems or something wrong with the new update, I won't be able to go downgrade to August update.
So, Is it really impossible to downgrade using Odin with an official firmware?
I'm coming from iOS and hence the fear of updating. As you may know, iOS downgrade is impossible when Apple sign-out the old software.
Thanks in advance.
Most major OS updates (i.e. from Android 9 to 10) also update the 'bootloader', which is a little piece of software that initializes your device, and runs before the system can even start (when you turn your phone on).
Once the bootloader is updated, it's often impossible and certainly not recommended to downgrade the OS, since you may permanently brick your device.
If Android 10 is out for your device model (eg. A505G in my case), just go ahead and update. I don't have any issues with it whatsoever, in fact it has fixed quite a few bugs (wifi connection would frequently drop for me in Pie with February/March updates, and now it doesn't anymore).
Greetings.
pripyaat said:
Most major OS updates (i.e. from Android 9 to 10) also update the 'bootloader', which is a little piece of software that initializes your device, and runs before the system can even start (when you turn your phone on).
Once the bootloader is updated, it's often impossible and certainly not recommended to downgrade the OS, since you may permanently brick your device.
If Android 10 is out for your device model (eg. A505G in my case), just go ahead and update. I don't have any issues with it whatsoever, in fact it has fixed quite a few bugs (wifi connection would frequently drop for me in Pie with February/March updates, and now it doesn't anymore).
Greetings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But can't I backup the boot loader too? Also, I heard that the official firmware includes the boot loader and therefore I won't have problems downgrading. I'm confused.
Screen not responding after update
Hi. I updated to the new Android 10 which my phone prompt me to install. But after updating, my screen is not responding anymore. I already tried to restart and factory reset. What can i do regarding this? Thank you very much!
sheidyly said:
Hi. I updated to the new Android 10 which my phone prompt me to install. But after updating, my screen is not responding anymore. I already tried to restart and factory reset. What can i do regarding this? Thank you very much!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to flash the ROM manually using ODIN
redymedan said:
Try to flash the ROM manually using ODIN
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry but I'm new to all of this and I seem to read some comments saying the phone was bricked after flashing.
And if I will try flashing, do I use the old firmware or the new one?
Thank you so much!
mistpsn said:
But can't I backup the boot loader too? Also, I heard that the official firmware includes the boot loader and therefore I won't have problems downgrading. I'm confused.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think... and I could be completely wrong, but it keeps track of the highest version of bootloader you installed. So it will not allow you to boot if you flash the older one. However, I am not sure how it behaves if the bootloader is unlocked.
If anyone have the same concerns I had. I found out that only security updates seems to have this message and risk bricking your phone in case you downgrade to lower version. Some people confirms that they were able to downgrade without any problems from android 10 to android 9 on their A50.
It also made sense that there are no problems since the warning message only included with security updates. The android 10 Update change list have no warnings related to downgrading to older versions.
March security update had the warning message. And I had to do the security upgrade before the android 10 update was available OTA.
My P6P (on T-Mobile) was working fine for me on the November release.
I did not sideload the December release.
With the January release, I started to notice significant radio issues.
I am seeing the same issue with the February release and after taking a look, I see that the radio has NOT changed between January and February. (But is a different radio from the November update)
I would definitely like to try flashing the November radio, but my Pixel bootloader is locked and can't be unlocked since it is still carrier locked. (I am working on that.)
In the meantime, is it possible for someone to make a custom OTA sideload package with just the November radio in it for those with locked bootloaders?
The 12L radio is different. I flashed it yesterday (12L factory image) and Signal is back to normal, and switching from Wifi to LTE/5G is much better than it's ever been on my 6 Pro. but its only been 24hours, but worth a try/
Good to know, but if I don't want to go 12L... again, could someone create a custom OTA sideload package with just the radio from 12L?
If this is even possible, which I'm dubious of, you might want to think twice. With a locked bootloader, your recovery options are more limited, so if someone creates such a custom OTA zip (again, if that's even possible to work with an unlocked bootloader), and something goes seriously wrong, it might be either more difficult or impossible to recover.
I would think (and could be completely wrong), that in the event of an issue, I'd be able to flash the original full OTA sideload package to recover.
chp said:
I would think (and could be completely wrong), that in the event of an issue, I'd be able to flash the original full OTA sideload package to recover.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just wanted to add, I tried flashing a different radio in December after flashing that image before it got pulled, and my phone wouldn't boot (but my bootloader was unlocked so I was able to save it but I wouldn't try it). I suggest you unlock your bootloader and flash 12L on both slots. That's what I did yesterday. Just kind of kill 2 birds with one stone by wiping, reflashing, and using a new build/radio (3 birds I guess?)
Creating a custom OTA won't work. That will break the cert chain and the phone won't validate it and install it.
chp said:
I would think (and could be completely wrong), that in the event of an issue, I'd be able to flash the original full OTA sideload package to recover.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends on how badly things went wrong. I would hope so, too, but would be a bigger gambler than someone who has the bootloader unlocked in the same situation. But of course, if you had an unlocked bootloader, you could flash only the radio.img without any customization needed. But as @TonikJDK indicates, the question is effectively moot, anyway.
TonikJDK said:
Creating a custom OTA won't work. That will break the cert chain and the phone won't validate it and install it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting. I didn't realize that was in place (signing of the various components such as radio+recovery+bootloader+image), and that the checking was disabled as part of the bootloader being unlocked.
chp said:
and that the checking was disabled as part of the bootloader being unlocked.
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Click to collapse
I could be wrong, but to clarify, the phone still checks the OTA to make sure it's valid even with an unlocked bootloader.
No one * bothers creating a custom OTA to install their ROMs as it would be more trouble than it's worth to do it that way.
What the unlocked bootloader gets us is the ability to install things in other ways than the normal OTA process.
* Other than possibly more fully developed custom ROMs such as GrapheneOS and such might use the normal OTA method since you can re-lock the bootloader once you're on it - I have no first-hand experience with GrapheneOS other than reading their site and what other users have said about it.
roirraW edor ehT said:
I could be wrong, but to clarify, the phone still checks the OTA to make sure it's valid even with an unlocked bootloader.
No one * bothers creating a custom OTA to install their ROMs as it would be more trouble than it's worth to do it that way.
What the unlocked bootloader gets us is the ability to install things in other ways than the normal OTA process.
* Other than possibly more fully developed custom ROMs such as GrapheneOS and such might use the normal OTA method since you can re-lock the bootloader once you're on it - I have no first-hand experience with GrapheneOS other than reading their site and what other users have said about it.
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Click to collapse
Ah yes, you're right. I was overthinking it. The sideload OTA does have a cert, so without the private key, we wouldn't be able to create a new cert to match the custom OTA contents.
I also use T-Mobile and was always using the November radio image whilst still updating everything else to the latest release. I was in the same boat as you with the November radio image working so much better than the others. Granted, right now I'm using the 12L beta radio image as it's (thankfully) much better than the others.
But yeah, with an unlocked bootloader you can flash whichever radio image that you want - even if it's from a different release than your current Android build. It won't cause problems if you know what you're doing and only takes a few minutes. Feel free to shoot me a message once your bootloader is unlocked if you need any help with this.
NippleSauce said:
I also use T-Mobile and was always using the November radio image whilst still updating everything else to the latest release. I was in the same boat as you with the November radio image working so much better than the others. Granted, right now I'm using the 12L beta radio image as it's (thankfully) much better than the others.
But yeah, with an unlocked bootloader you can flash whichever radio image that you want - even if it's from a different release than your current Android build. It won't cause problems if you know what you're doing and only takes a few minutes. Feel free to shoot me a message once your bootloader is unlocked if you need any help with this.
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Click to collapse
Thanks. I've been with Android and Pixel/Nexus for a long time, and other than needing to brush up, I'm still familiar with the ins-and-outs to flashing, etc.
My Pixel 6 Pro is carrier locked, and would have to be unlocked before I could unlock the bootloader. I was just hoping to make my Pixel 6 Pro usable again without having to try to get it unlocked.
Since my radio issues started with the January update, I was hoping the February update would fix things. At first it did seem better, but then the poor behavior returned. And when I realized that the radio was unchanged in February from January, that explained things.
chp said:
My Pixel 6 Pro is carrier locked, and would have to be unlocked before I could unlock the bootloader. I was just hoping to make my Pixel 6 Pro usable again without having to try to get it unlocked.
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Click to collapse
I feel ya. That's partially why I started buying my phones from the company that makes them (and also because my phone carrier stopped offering any interesting upgrades after being with them for a few years lol). But supposedly, a quick text chat with a T-Mo representative via the T-Mobile app can get your device carrier unlocked via the SIM card if you're polite with the whole thing and ask the right questions. I'm not sure if anything specific needs to be asked or stated, but you could always give that a shot. I just quickly skimmed through a post from someone who did that the other day but I didn't give it too much thought since my device is factory unlocked.
But I wish you the best of luck with your phone service!