Questions about GSIs I can't find answers to - Treble-Enabled Device Questions and Answers

Hey there,
For the most part, I kind of understand how GSIs work and how you're meant to flash them. But the information on both of those things are honestly really scant right now. As such, I have a couple of questions to ask with regards to how they function and how they affect my approach to "dirty flashing" them.
1) The Resurrection Remix GSI thread states to wipe /system. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that completely break everything and not work at all? At least in the case of my device (Moto G6 Play), I'm fairly certain it has to be sitting on top of stock firmware to work...which would be removed if you wiped /system.
2) Whilst I'm aware you can easily throw "Derivative" GSIs like Descendant on top of Phh's AOSP GSI with minimal repercussions, what about dirty flashing derivative GSIs onto derivative GSIs? Currently, I'm on the aforementioned Descendant and wish to try out the Resurrection Remix GSI, but I figure that since they both add custom stuff to the AOSP base, it might mess something up if I just dirty flashed - or would any problems be fixed by the factory reset that comes afterward?
3) Is there seriously no way to have a fully "clean" GSI installation without going back and starting from the beginning by reinstalling stock FW then going through the process of flashing the GSI etc? Is Dirty Flash + Factory Reset my only option with this?
I know these all probably have very obvious answers that I somehow can't see, but I appreciate your patience. Thanks!

Related

Pixel XL ROM/Recovery/Root Questions

I'm thinking about picking up a Pixel XL soon (currently still using a Nexus 6) and I kind of just assumed that development on the Pixels was moving fine, until I started looking into it tonight, only to find that there is still only RC versions of TWRP that sound super buggy, and Lineage doesn't even have official builds for either device because of some issue with Google Apps and the partition system on the phone.
So, this leads me to a few questions:
1) Is the TWRP RC2 build for the Pixel XL fairly stable, functional and safe to use? I only ever really do the very occasional backup/restore within TWRP and flash stuff, so as long as the basic functionality is working I'd be happy.
2) This whole two partition thing sounds like a bit of a nightmare to me and sounds like a way riskier setup. Is it easier to brick this phone than other phones that use a normal partition layout, and is it possible to recover from something like that fairly easily?
3) For anyone that uses Invisiblek's unofficial Lineage builds, do they work fine? I know it has some crashing issue when trying to record multiple 30 FPS videos in succession, but that doesn't matter to me at all really. Is it possible to simply flash the official Lineage root file on this unofficial build to have the built in root, or would I be required to use SuperSU?
4) I see people talking about vendor images, and something about the phone getting hot or having super high CPU and memory usage until they reflashed this image. What is this about?
Thanks in advance to anyone who is able to answer any of my questions!
admiralspeedy said:
I'm thinking about picking up a Pixel XL soon (currently still using a Nexus 6) and I kind of just assumed that development on the Pixels was moving fine, until I started looking into it tonight, only to find that there is still only RC versions of TWRP that sound super buggy, and Lineage doesn't even have official builds for either device because of some issue with Google Apps and the partition system on the phone.
So, this leads me to a few questions:
1) Is the TWRP RC2 build for the Pixel XL fairly stable, functional and safe to use? I only ever really do the very occasional backup/restore within TWRP and flash stuff, so as long as the basic functionality is working I'd be happy.
2) This whole two partition thing sounds like a bit of a nightmare to me and sounds like a way riskier setup. Is it easier to brick this phone than other phones that use a normal partition layout, and is it possible to recover from something like that fairly easily?
3) For anyone that uses Invisiblek's unofficial Lineage builds, do they work fine? I know it has some crashing issue when trying to record multiple 30 FPS videos in succession, but that doesn't matter to me at all really. Is it possible to simply flash the official Lineage root file on this unofficial build to have the built in root, or would I be required to use SuperSU?
4) I see people talking about vendor images, and something about the phone getting hot or having super high CPU and memory usage until they reflashed this image. What is this about?
Thanks in advance to anyone who is able to answer any of my questions!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
I think I can answer some of your questions...
1 - TWRP is stable enough for the usual tasks. Some people seem to have issues with restoring partitions on RC2 and end up with some partitions word. Some others say they have no problems. Who's right, who's wrong, is it a particular scenario that makes this problem occurs, I don't know. I just use RC1 without issue...
Also, you are not obliged to install TWRP. You can "fastboot boot twrp.img" RC1 version, do your things and reboot. If you want to stay on stock firmware, it's a nice feature, since you won't have to reflash stock boot.img to take an OTA (Recovery is now part of the boot.img unlike older version which had a proper recovery partition).
2 - I feel you here. I felt scared as well the first time I had to deal with the beast. The only advise I can give you is: read, read and... read again. It's not so hard once you understand how it works. Also, you can still ask for some help if you are unsure, people here are really helpful!
Some users have bricked their devices and those got fixed. But as far as i remember, none that got hard bricked (I only read the Pixel XL forum since two months, so of course I may have missed some ).
3 - I'm a Pure Nexus user. Works very well, if you are looking for a stable alternative. :angel:
4 - I have never had this problem, sorry... But just take a look at this if you want to know the vendor.img is: https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/akHWypRNEn3
Every months with new security patch, a new vendor.img is included in the factory image or OTA.
If you install lineage OS from maybe April 2017 you'll likely have to flash N2G47E vendor.img which you can find here: https://developers.google.com/android/images inside the factory image archive.
If you install lineage OS April updates, you are fine with this vendor.img.
But in May, you'll have to flash a new vendor.img. Usually you will be notified by the ROM developer, which vendor.img is needed. Considering Google sometimes release two or three builds every months.
Hope that helps a little bit... :good:
Good luck...

HELP with this GSI thing

hey guys, i'm not a complete newbie about roms and flashing, etc. but treble is a whole new thing for me and I'm running into lot ot trebles (lol) and I hope someone helps me.
1. I dont need to do system wipe to flash GSI, right? only Factory Reset.
2. Also, I can get to use GApps and such, but my contacts, chrome, etc, would not sync. no matter what.
3. How can I know if the image can be flash over Oreo base, and what is this /vendor thing?
please help me, i've read a lot of guides but i can't quite figure it all out.
Vendor is a partition similar to system where your device specific things stay which are no longer in system in treble. Such as camera libraries, gps,Bluetooth,wifi and links to firmware files. When a gsi is flashed to system , it will read the information present in vendor, so you will need to flash vendor first via treble ROM or vendor image and then flash a gsi after wiping system.

Has anyone tried a treble ROM on the Tab s4?

There are unfortunately no ROMs specifically for this device yet, but has anyone tried to use a generic treble ROM on this device?
Thanks in advance
I have tried several treble ROMs, the majority don't even boot. Lineage os worked but was buggy. The more stable one was Havoc, if I remember correctly.
I was interested in the Q developer ROM but it didn't work. I'm back to the stock pie Rom, since there is no Netflix HD support on those treble roms.
gtaadicto92 said:
I have tried several treble ROMs, the majority don't even boot. Lineage os worked but was buggy. The more stable one was Havoc, if I remember correctly.
I was interested in the Q developer ROM but it didn't work. I'm back to the stock pie Rom, since there is no Netflix HD support on those treble roms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Mate, I've been trying to flash a working GSI rom but had no success so far(have an SM-T830). In the past have built ROMs for Tab A 10.1 and flashed them many times with TWRP and Odin so I just cannot understand am I retarded to not being able to flash a working one or what? Have managed to put TWRP 3.3.0.0 and TWRP 3.3.0.1 on the device. Have tried my own arm64_aonly image first. Then an original AOSP one, then a Lineage OS version, at the moment I am just downloading Havoc. The result (apart from the havoc) was always the same. The flashing went through successfully and when I rebooted into system the very fist image came up and boot looped from there. I am always able to go back to TWRP and try another image or through odin can restore the factory image but none of the GSI images seem to be working. So, here is my question. As you managed to get a Lineage and Havoc working, can you tell by looking at it what am I doing wrong please:
1.: OEM unlock
2.: TWRP install with odin
3.: Boot straight into TWRP to prevent being overwritten
4.: TWRP: format data
5.: Flash system image (arm64_aonly)
From here have tried so many things like,
- booting straight into system
- booting back to recovery
- flashing the force_decryptor or how the hell is that called
- formatted data again as the decryptor suggests
The result was always the same, boot looped from the very first image. It seems like that the image is not getting flashed and even if TWRP says was flashed right it is just not there. I'm literaly pulling my hair as it was so easy and straight forward with the Tab A 10.1, but with this ….. thanks for your answer in advance
anyone have any luck with treble GSIs? i can only get arrowos to boot and even then i cant install gapps.
droidbot1337 said:
anyone have any luck with treble GSIs? i can only get arrowos to boot and even then i cant install gapps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used AOSP 9.0 and LineageOS 16 with OpenGApps Pico and both work but are very buggy.
After hours of trying to figure this out myself i ended up finding two ROMs that work for me. I was running stock Android 9 with september's security updates when testing these out:
Roms that i tried, that did NOT work:
BlissOS
ArrowOS
Lineage16
The ROMs that DID work for me were:
phunsson's Treble Experimentations
microG ufOfficial
The only 2 bugs that i've seen so far have been a small graphical glitch of quickettings not staying within the bounds of the pulldown and MTP not working at all. These are both present in both ROMs (The microg ROM uses phhusson's rom as the base). Neither of these bother me all that and i'm very happy to be able to move to microg and not have all the google/samsung bloat hogging my tablet and constantly trying to ping their motherships.
Here's a great list of Generic System Image (GSI) ROMs that you can click scroll through and try downloading and flashing to your device to see if you have any luck.
My process of installing phunsson's GSI ROM:
Reboot to TWRP,
Do a factory reset (Wipe > "Swipe to Do Factory Reset")
Install Image
Reboot
Took about a minute and a half displaying the bootanimation before it got to the home screen for the first time. If it's loading for more than 5 minutes then that ROM definitely isn't going to work with your device.
Hope this helps someone out there trying to get away from their bloated Samsung One UI.
motomotomotoG said:
After hours of trying to figure this out myself i ended up finding two ROMs that work for me. I was running stock Android 9 with september's security updates when testing these out:
Roms that i tried, that did NOT work:
BlissOS
ArrowOS
Lineage16
The ROMs that DID work for me were:
phunsson's Treble Experimentations
microG ufOfficial
The only 2 bugs that i've seen so far have been a small graphical glitch of quickettings not staying within the bounds of the pulldown and MTP not working at all. These are both present in both ROMs (The microg ROM uses phhusson's rom as the base). Neither of these bother me all that and i'm very happy to be able to move to microg and not have all the google/samsung bloat hogging my tablet and constantly trying to ping their motherships.
Here's a great list of Generic System Image (GSI) ROMs that you can click scroll through and try downloading and flashing to your device to see if you have any luck.
My process of installing phunsson's GSI ROM:
Reboot to TWRP,
Do a factory reset (Wipe > "Swipe to Do Factory Reset")
Install Image
Reboot
Took about a minute and a half displaying the bootanimation before it got to the home screen for the first time. If it's loading for more than 5 minutes then that ROM definitely isn't going to work with your device.
Hope this helps someone out there trying to get away from their bloated Samsung One UI.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did AOSP 10.0 work for you? I haven't been able to get it to boot. Strangely AOSP 9 and LOS 16 are the only ones I've had luck with.
@last1youlove whoa! You got LOS to work? What kind of magician are you? That one never booted for me. The only ROM I got working was ArrowOS and it has a few bugs. I really want to get HavocOS to work but it's a no-go!
droidbot1337 said:
@last1youlove whoa! You got LOS to work? What kind of magician are you? That one never booted for me. The only ROM I got working was ArrowOS and it has a few bugs. I really want to get HavocOS to work but it's a no-go!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strange, How did you go about installing it?
last1youlove said:
Did AOSP 10.0 work for you? I haven't been able to get it to boot. Strangely AOSP 9 and LOS 16 are the only ones I've had luck with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have not. I just really wanted an AOSP based ROM and i had gotten to the point where i had reflashed the stock firmware 3 times through ODIN because I messed up 1 thing or another. So once i got a functional ROM that worked great I just decided to stick to it. Also I don't think Android 10 has Xposed support yet, and i need that in order to enable Signature Spoofing for MicroG's FakeStore.

[Root][CFW][crDroid][MAGISK] How to root / confused about different parts of puzzle!

Howdy!
Please forgive me if this is the wrong place / my google-skills are insufficient!
This is my first post to this forum, because I can't resolve what part is important in rooting (w Magisk?) my RN8P.
First about myself (and my abilities): I did flash some phones (S4 mini, Zenphone2, Yoga Tab 3 plus) with TWRP and Lineage, so basic knowledge should be present, but nothing "in depth"!...
What I did to my RN8P (begonia, global, EU):
OTA-Updated to MIUI A10
Unlocked Bootloader
Reflashed MIUI A9 (because reasons )
Fastboot flashed lk & preloader from CFW MEGATHREAD & non-CFW TWRP
Flashed crDroid (with CFW and TWRP batch) and the crDroid Rom itself w. openGapps via TWRP
What I want to achieve:
Limit my battery charging to a certain percentage
Maybe use the often praised camera app praised with magisk
Let the rest of the system "as is", so have AntiBrick, TWRP and "invisible" Root
Maybe use other magisk-goodies
Versions used:
CFW A10 20200530
TWRP from crDroid-pkg (3.3.1-0)
crDroid 10 20200721 begonia
open gapps arm64 / 10 / pico / 20200730
My question:
I've read about installing MAGISK can trip the AVB, which is to avoid at all costs(?!?), so where is my starting-point for MAGISK?
So what are the pitfalls I have to avoid / consider? / Which guide to follow on how to do it proper?
Forgive my ignorance, any help / bump in the right direction is highly appreciated!
Thoughts so far
Hey!
I think my understanding has grown a little bit...
There is only one Version (no A - A/B) of MAGISK any more, so no fuss about picking the right tool. And being brought via zip-file for flashing within TWRP seems very convenient.
There seem to be TWRP-versions out there, which can mitigate the AVB-tripping for our RN8P, are they CFW compatible? (and which is recommended?)
So basically these questions remain:
Which exact TWRP-version is recommended?
Shall I completely reflash CFW, crDroid, openGapps, when I flash MAGISK? Or just wipe cache / davlik and reset to factory?
Are there other pitfalls or downsides of using MAGISK in my combination of Hard & Software?
Cheers, Mecky85
Not using CFW (Stock MIUI with Magisk benefits), but here is some advice:
0. Make sure you follow every step on TWRP site (especially the vbmeta flashing part). It can save you from headache. I don't say you have to use TWRP, tho. Also make sure you do this step if you return to stock boot image. Do it once, and you are fine.
1. Use CFW-compliance recovery, as recovery has it's own firmware.
2. In my case (I'm doing update with this procedure: MIUI+Magisk>vanillafy>update MIUI>Mod), no need to reset anything. But resetting dalvik+cache is not bad either.
3. Out of question.
Hope that help.
Thanks for the headsup with vbmeta, will have time to look (and hopefolly have a got at it) after the weekend!
Will post my experiences in here.
After a good batch of reading into the topic... I'm not convinced any more I'll cope with it...
Not worth for me to figure everything out, if reading into this is such a hassle... :silly:

Treble support on the Google Pixel XL

I was thinking about purchasing a Google Pixel XL due to the reasonable specs and good rom support. But I was just wondering if the device was treble supported before I decided to buy anything as it would help me out quite a bit. Also I am quite the enthusiast when it comes to custom roms and stuff.
If anyone has an answer i will be very grateful.
Thanks.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy A20e (SM-A202F/DS)
Got this
Check attached photo. I have been playing with one of these for a bit. I loaded up TWRP followed with the latest Resurrection Remix and the phone is so fun to use.
mindlery said:
Check attached photo. I have been playing with one of these for a bit. I loaded up TWRP followed with the latest Resurrection Remix and the phone is so fun to use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you flash it? I've been trying to flash phh and lineage but it won't boot at all. Tried in both TWRP and fastboot.
Sorry i was not clear about my message. I'm not using any GSI images. I am using https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-xl/development/unofficial-resurrectionremix-8-5-8-t4149771
I used to flash a lot of GSI's on another model and often i would need patches, custom kernel and some needed a clean flash of one first to get what i wanted after. I really like this ROM, but i have no problems going to stock if i screw up, which i will. So i'll go see if i can get a gsi on top of Rrmix. I'll be back.
I tried a couple gsi's and twrp gives a partition size error. (Too small).. What methods other than factory resetting and trying to install have you tried?
Pretty sure the version of TWRP used is specific. I tried RR with 3.4 and it was a mess. Now i'm using 3.2.3.1 and things are not perfect, but close enough for me.
mindlery said:
I tried a couple gsi's and twrp gives a partition size error. (Too small).. What methods other than factory resetting and trying to install have you tried?
Pretty sure the version of TWRP used is specific. I tried RR with 3.4 and it was a mess. Now i'm using 3.2.3.1 and things are not perfect, but close enough for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TWRP 3.4.0.0 is only good because it brings decryption support - there's also a fork of 3.3.0.0 by NZedPred on the regular Pixel forum (but the port is built for the XL too) which brings the best of both worlds, 3.4.0.0 decryption and 3.2.3.1 stability.
The small system partition is a known problem with our Pixels, there are repartitioning scripts ... but here be dragons.

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