Related
Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any damage or liability arising out of these steps. I did not invent anything, I just tried something. Only move forward at your risk
If you don't agree ... stop reading and move on...
Background: Our phone has access to so much personal information that its scary if it fell into wrong hands. The only way to fix this is to encrypt phone. I did lot of research and here is a working solution that works for me - try at your risk.
Download Links:
a) Tested with ROM Stock 4.4.4 NH7 Galaxy S4 M919/Jfltetmo by @ShinySide
b) Tested with ROM |ROM|★KANGAKAT★|►KTU84P◄|4.4.4|Xposed|►8◄|6.26.14 by @iB4STiD
c) stock recovery AT&T S4 works with M919
d) Philz/CWM custom recovery
Encrypting with custom rom
1) Assume you are on custom recovery. - Backup everything first. Create a nandroid backup
2) Do a full wipe and install one of the two roms linked above (I have tested with few other roms ... none worked). Start the phone and set it up the way you want. Install all apps etc.
3) ODIN Stock recovery. See #c under download above. Its AT&T stock recovery but works for me. You need to know how to ODIN - find out. Doing this wrong will permanently damage your phone
4) Start your phone and turn on encryption. You will need to set lock type = password and will need to connect to charger and have 80% charge.
- Phone will do blank and stay blank for 20-30 minutes. Do not do anything. Encryption is happening behind the scenes.
- You might have to do this twice or thrice if it did not encrypt first time. For me the phone went blank first time and after 25 minutes it restarted but device was not encrypted. I redid the same steps and worked second time.
- If you interrupt the encryption process (battery pull or power up) you will see error message (encryption failed, reset device)
5) If all goes well you now have a password protected encrypted phone with custom rom!!! Check in Settings -> Security
6) You may install custom recovery ... but I don't see the point because you will need stock recovery to decrypt
To install another ROM
1) Reboot into stock recovery, then wipe data and cache (this removes encryption).
2) install your recovery of choice and install ROM using recovery. Philz/CWM
Credit goes to @Tronicus and his reply Flash a Rom on an Encrypted Android
Tronicus said:
How to Flash a rom on an encrypted Android phone (specifically this one, the I9505 SGH-I337).
The Problem: Once encrypted, you can't decrypt it easily. When encrypting the phone android will tell you you can only decrypt it using a factory reset. Naturally you assume it's talking about the "Factory Data Reset" option found in Settings --> Backup and Reset. But noooo, Android is lying through its ****ing teeth. Then you'll assume you have to wipe everything from your custom recovery mod (CWM, TWRP, or one of those). Wrong again! You'll get beautiful "can't mount /data" messages and more bull****. I read about a workaround that required installing the new rom using ADB, but I had ingeniously disabled USB debugging prior to wiping everything, so I only got so far with that option (plus it's tediously long if you haven't installed all the necessary software already and don't feel like bricking your phone because you made a typo in the command line). So, apparently the only other way to really format that partition free of its encryption is to use a stock recovery. So:
Short Version for Godlike users who know automatically how to do all this **** without any help (mimicking how most help posts are finely detailed on this site): Flash stock recovery, wipe everything, flash your custom recovery and install your new rom.
Long version for us mortals who don't know everything and haven't already downloaded already every single bit of software on earth:
Backup all the stuff you want to save. This process will truly wipe EVERYTHING. You can do it manually, or you can use an app like Titanium Backup Pro to help you (find it on Google Play Store). Here's a nice guide which recommends what to restore and what not to restore: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1480343
Flash the stock recovery using Odin. You can download a stock recovery from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=49687791&postcount=3 It's the link called "I337MK2stockrecovery.tar.md5" In case you don't know how to flash it with Odin, this short guide will help: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1506697
In step 6 replace "recovery.tar.md5" with the stock recovery you downloaded.
Wipe everything from the Stock recovery console. This little ****er will **** up the encryption all those sissies couldn't touch. You're welcome. You boot into recovery mode from a turned off phone by pressing simultaneously the volume up key + the home key + the power key until you see blue text appearing in the top left corner of your screen.
Reinstall your custom recovery. In my case I had installed the rom BEFORE flashing in the stock recovery (apparently it works, you just can't boot because of the encryption), so I was able to boot into the new rom before I returned to my custom recovery. Weird. Anyways, I recommend CWM. You can pick it up from this link: http://goo.im/devs/philz_touch/CWM_Advanced_Edition/jflte
For some weird reason they call the I337 version the "jflte" version. It's bonkers. Click there, and download the latest version that ends with .tar.md5. This version is upgradable via Odin, which we already used. Use the same instructions used as when you upgraded the stock recovery rom.
Boot into your recovery mod and flash your rom like you usually do.
A word about TWRP: it cost me many hours of work and I don't recommend it. Its website is outdated, and recommends using GooManager (which is no longer mantained) and doesn't work anymore for this. GooManager suggests using a new, different app, which doesn't have the option of installing TWRP. Then I tried using their TWRP Manager app from play store and the image file wouldn't download. Then I tried manually selecting the image file in TWRP manager that I downloaded from their site for use via the ADB method, and it bricked my phone... twice (using two different methods the app sugested). I tried so much because in theory TWRP has the ability to decrypt android's 4.4 encryption, but after looking at their github site I noticed it was filled with people's reports (including people with the S4) on how it wouldn't work decrypting squat. So I gave up, and installed CWM in 30 seconds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any damage or liability arising out of these steps. I did not invent anything, I just tried something. Only move forward at your risk
cnewsgrp said:
One of the things I needed was the ability to encrypt my phone (device only not external SD) for security purpose. Our phones today gives access to lot of information that I would rather not fall in wrong hands. I did lot of research and here is a working solution.
Credit goes to @Tronicus and his reply Flash a Rom on an Encrypted Android
The quote looks long however it is really very simple. To install another ROM
- Install and reboot into stock recovery, then wipe data and cache (this removes encryption).
- Then install your recovery of choice and install ROM using recovery. Philz/CWM
This has been tested working on |ROM|★KANGAKAT★|►KTU84P◄|4.4.4|Xposed|►8◄|6.26.14 by @iB4STiD
This did NOT work on a Touchwiz ROM by same developer
I have not tested any other ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if it matters too much or not, but the stock recovery you linked to is for the AT&T S4. A good rule of thumb is to never use Odin to flash anything not specifically for your particular device... In this case the M919.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
lordcheeto03 said:
I don't know if it matters too much or not, but the stock recovery you linked to is for the AT&T S4. A good rule of thumb is to never use Odin to flash anything not specifically for your particular device... In this case the M919.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tested stock recovery on M919 .. it works
Honestly im surprised its not talked about more since there is a big push for personal privacy when it comes to data. Encryption really is a pain in the ass to work with on android. Figuring out how to switch or update custom roms while encrypted will drive you insane. The easiest way is to just odin back to stock and start over, but that requires a computer anytime you need to flash anything.
I recently was trying out one of the 4.4.4 GPE roms and turned on encryption. It worked great until i started missing touchwiz and wanted to go back to HyperDrive TW. So the journey began...
First of all, i backed up everything to external storage since i knew everything on the internal storage would have to be wiped. I loaded the phone into recovery mode (using TWRP) and tried wiping, but all i got was a bunch of "Failed to mount" errors. Fine. Got the same error when trying to factory reset or wiping /system, /data, /cache, and anything else. Tried formatting to different file systems and then formatting back to the original but no luck. Fixing permissions didnt help. I just kept trying everything available multiple times.
Eventually it started wiping everything except the /data mount. Well... At least i could install new custom roms. Im not sure exactly what did it because i was just throwing everything at it. Anyways I got it to install, and booted into it. Nope.
Now it was saying I needed the password to decrypt the internal storage. It would detect wrong passwords fine, but as soon as i put the correct password in, it would allow me in, show the green android encryption picture, then blank screen. I thought it was just decrypting and setting up my rom but after a few hours my screen was still black and nothing was happening. Pulled battery and went back to TWRP.
I started wiping everything again and again and tried doing everything i could to wipe everything on the internal storage. Again, not sure what did it, but eventually got it all cleaned up and got a new rom installed and could boot into it.
The whole process probably took about 6-7 hours...
I dont even want to enable encryption on the new rom...
p-hil said:
Honestly im surprised its not talked about more since there is a big push for personal privacy when it comes to data. Encryption really is a pain in the ass to work with on android. Figuring out how to switch or update custom roms while encrypted will drive you insane. The easiest way is to just odin back to stock and start over, but that requires a computer anytime you need to flash anything.
I recently was trying out one of the 4.4.4 GPE roms and turned on encryption. It worked great until i started missing touchwiz and wanted to go back to HyperDrive TW. So the journey began...
First of all, i backed up everything to external storage since i knew everything on the internal storage would have to be wiped. I loaded the phone into recovery mode (using TWRP) and tried wiping, but all i got was a bunch of "Failed to mount" errors. Fine. Got the same error when trying to factory reset or wiping /system, /data, /cache, and anything else. Tried formatting to different file systems and then formatting back to the original but no luck. Fixing permissions didnt help. I just kept trying everything available multiple times.
Eventually it started wiping everything except the /data mount. Well... At least i could install new custom roms. Im not sure exactly what did it because i was just throwing everything at it. Anyways I got it to install, and booted into it. Nope.
Now it was saying I needed the password to decrypt the internal storage. It would detect wrong passwords fine, but as soon as i put the correct password in, it would allow me in, show the green android encryption picture, then blank screen. I thought it was just decrypting and setting up my rom but after a few hours my screen was still black and nothing was happening. Pulled battery and went back to TWRP.
I started wiping everything again and again and tried doing everything i could to wipe everything on the internal storage. Again, not sure what did it, but eventually got it all cleaned up and got a new rom installed and could boot into it.
The whole process probably took about 6-7 hours...
I dont even want to enable encryption on the new rom...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah Encryption does not seem to work on TWZ roms. I tried on G Eye without luck.
I have updated op. Please check
Encryption will slow down your phone quite a bit. More battery usage + more CPU usage + slower phone = not worth it unless you've got some very private stuff you don't want being shared. Otherwise, 3rd party apps that lock a lot of files, can encrypt certain files, and hide others will do the trick perfectly well.'
Not trying to bash fully encrypting your phone, but I've tried it before and although I am very pro privacy, I had to eventually take it off due to all the extra hassle it created.
Don't know about slowing down. I am not seeing it. I feel differently about security.
Has anyone noticed any issue on their h815 with regards to encrypting the phone? Mine does not work; full or quick option. Has unlocking the bootloader caused this to stop working? I have got root and twrp recovery. Could the custom recovery be causing the phone to get stuck on rebooting to encrypt? The lg website says certain features no longer work after the bootloader is unlocked; maybe this is one of those? All just guess work atm, any help would be appreciated.
v1ne said:
Has anyone noticed any issue on their h815 with regards to encrypting the phone? Mine does not work; full or quick option. Has unlocking the bootloader caused this to stop working? I have got root and twrp recovery. Could the custom recovery be causing the phone to get stuck on rebooting to encrypt? The lg website says certain features no longer work after the bootloader is unlocked; maybe this is one of those? All just guess work atm, any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
i do not know, as I do NOT (yet?) own the device! But I would love to know! Any unlocked + encrypted phones out there? I would be interested how many of the geeks around here encrypt their phones?
For me, these days, I do not own a single device (PC, Notebook, Smartphone whatever) that is NOT encrypted. The more easy you loose the device, the more encryption should be a standard.
What is the reality? And does it work with the unlocked bootloader?
v1ne said:
I have got root and twrp recovery. Could the custom recovery be causing the phone to get stuck on rebooting to encrypt? d.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly the same here! I would be very happy if someone could help me out, maybe by looking at some logcat files? The device is rooted after all. Just tell me what log files you would need?
I would like to try to flash the stock recovery. Delete TWRP as I think this could be the culprit. I read about bringing the device back to stock but I am unsure what files I do need exactly and how to proceed. I downloaded the LG Flash tool. Any help would be very much appreciated!
I just got this phone, rooted, unlocked BL, installed Xposed. I tried to encrypt phone, but when I started the process, it rebooted and now it's at the white T-Mobile splash screen. There's no progress indication anywhere and it has been almost an hour. I think I'll have to pull battery.
v1ne said:
Has anyone noticed any issue on their h815 with regards to encrypting the phone? Mine does not work; full or quick option. Has unlocking the bootloader caused this to stop working? I have got root and twrp recovery. Could the custom recovery be causing the phone to get stuck on rebooting to encrypt? The lg website says certain features no longer work after the bootloader is unlocked; maybe this is one of those? All just guess work atm, any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you (or fpsq) manage to do this in the end (and if yes, how)? I have the same issue I think... rooted the phone with the method here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/g4/general/lg-g4-100-root-success-directives-root-t3180586
and now the phone gets stuck on the initial reboot after launching encryption. It works if I unplug the battery, which shows it doesn't even start the process.
Thanks for any help.
It didn't get anywhere, so I tried it again with quick encryption. Same white screen. I rooted with a huge pre-rooted system image. using dd. Did you unlock boot loader, install custom recovery, or install Xposed?
OGIGA said:
It didn't get anywhere, so I tried it again with quick encryption. Same white screen. I rooted with a huge pre-rooted system image. using dd. Did you unlock boot loader, install custom recovery, or install Xposed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No to all three. I also used dd but first dumped my system partition, injected the root files, and then rewrote it (rather than the main method that you used, writing the ready-made image). See the thread I linked earlier for details.
It really seems the root is the problem here. fpsq seems to have gotten it working in a roundabout way:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=62156629&postcount=1468
but I don't understand exactly what he did, I PMed him to ask.
WARNING: Once you encrypt your phone/sdcard you can NOT cancel the process. After you encrypt your phone/sdcard, if you forget your password, you will have to factory reset (wipes /data) and/or format your sdcard (wipes /external_SD) to get a useable phone. Your data WILL be lost!
Also TWRP can not read encrypted volumes other than some Nexus devices, so make a backup BEFORE you encrypt it or the internal/external sdcard.
Overview: You have to kill the SuperSu daemon (temporarily unrooting it) and THEN start the stock encryption process.
1. Install Busybox (need the pkill utility)
2. Open Terminal Emulator and:
Code:
$ su
# pkill -KILL daemonsu
$ exit
NOTE: You'll notice that the # changed back to $. This means that you are no longer the root user and the SuperSu daemon is not running. Do NOT open any other apps, including the SuperSu app.
3. Now go to Settings ---> Security ---> Encrypt Phone.
IMPORTANT: Make sure your phone charger is plugged in. Go through the prompts to encrypt your phone and/or sdcard and the phone will reboot. It will stay at the bootscreen for about a minute and then you will see the white encryption screen. it will ask you for an encryption password. Once you set that, write it down, email it to yourself, whatever you have to do to remember it because if you forget it, there is no helping you. You will have to factory reset (wipes /data) to get a useable phone. Your data WILL be lost!
It will run until it gets to 100% and the phone will reboot. Once it comes back up with the white screen, enter your password and the boot phone will finish booting. To check that the phone/sdcard is encrypted, go to Settings ---> Security and under Encrypt Phone and Encrypt SD card storage, you should see "Encrypted".
Hope this helps.
barcodelinux said:
You have to kill the SuperSu daemon (temporarily unrooting it) and Then start the stock encryption process.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It works! And it's so clear why it works, now why didn't I think of this?
Thanks a lot for figuring it out and posting it here, you really helped me! Phones hold so much private data nowadays and are so easy to lose that I was really uncomfortable using it unencrypted.
OGIGA said:
I just got this phone, rooted, unlocked BL, installed Xposed. I tried to encrypt phone, but when I started the process, it rebooted and now it's at the white T-Mobile splash screen. There's no progress indication anywhere and it has been almost an hour. I think I'll have to pull battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey there - did you get any luck with this? My G4 updated to MM last week, and now I'm trying encryption - but it's been sitting on the initial boot screen for over an hour (not a loop, just that one screen), with no progress bar or screen.
No idea what it's doing, but hoping that pulling the battery out won't brick it completely!
PS. my phone isn't even rooted, so it can't be THAT causing a problem
Thanks,
J
jasonnm said:
Hey there - did you get any luck with this? My G4 updated to MM last week, and now I'm trying encryption - but it's been sitting on the initial boot screen for over an hour (not a loop, just that one screen), with no progress bar or screen.
No idea what it's doing, but hoping that pulling the battery out won't brick it completely!
PS. my phone isn't even rooted, so it can't be THAT causing a problem
Thanks,
J
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just installed Marshmallow last week and took a stab at encryption again. I installed TWRP 2.7.8.1, by the way. What I also did was flash what I think is the original boot.img. I think this would have un-rooted my device and maybe un-Xposed too, but I forgot because I was really sick last week.
Anyway, the standard device encryption actually worked. I opted for /data encryption instead of full device. Funny thing was that the first time I did it, it was stuck at the boot screen, but was actually encrypting. I didn't know that, so I took out the battery and it screwed up my /data, so the OS made me wipe /data. Fortunately, I backed up right when I did Marshmallow, so I restored my /data. I went to encrypt again and waited this time. Eventually, the screen went from boot screen to the encrypting screen starting at like 60% finished. It finished and my /data was encrypted!
I went to TWRP but TWRP could not decrypt my /data no matter what password I tried. Since my /system and /boot were not encrypted, SuperSU installation was easy. I got the password screen at boot like expected.
However, when I installed Xposed, the password screen would keep popping up with "_____ has stopped" persistently and I had to time it right hit each key of the password. When I uninstalled Xposed, the popups stopped. Installed Xposed again, popups were back. After struggling to enter the password and booting up, everything works fine.
That's how much I have experienced so far.
OGIGA said:
I just installed Marshmallow last week and took a stab at encryption again. I installed TWRP 2.7.8.1, by the way. What I also did was flash what I think is the original boot.img. I think this would have un-rooted my device and maybe un-Xposed too, but I forgot because I was really sick last week.
Anyway, the standard device encryption actually worked. I opted for /data encryption instead of full device. Funny thing was that the first time I did it, it was stuck at the boot screen, but was actually encrypting. I didn't know that, so I took out the battery and it screwed up my /data, so the OS made me wipe /data. Fortunately, I backed up right when I did Marshmallow, so I restored my /data. I went to encrypt again and waited this time. Eventually, the screen went from boot screen to the encrypting screen starting at like 60% finished. It finished and my /data was encrypted!
I went to TWRP but TWRP could not decrypt my /data no matter what password I tried. Since my /system and /boot were not encrypted, SuperSU installation was easy. I got the password screen at boot like expected.
However, when I installed Xposed, the password screen would keep popping up with "_____ has stopped" persistently and I had to time it right hit each key of the password. When I uninstalled Xposed, the popups stopped. Installed Xposed again, popups were back. After struggling to enter the password and booting up, everything works fine.
That's how much I have experienced so far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the extra info - need to try again when I get a bit more time, but I eventually pulled the battery (risky, I know!) and put it back in and everything was normal, like nothing had changed. Certainly no encryption anywhere.
Will update when I give it another try.
Thanks again!
So if I had my SD card encrypted, and my phone puked, I get another G4 and want to use my old SD card (I have the password) how can I access the files on the SD card ?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Ok I am having some serious issues as of late, I am far from an Android expert but have been using and rooting them since Android started, and I am also a Linux user. So as stated in the subject I have been getting these issues (not always together).
Recovery will disappear after a normal reboot.
Root will disappear after a normal reboot.
WiFi is "broken" after a normal reboot (is disabled, and can't be enabled).
My status bar disappears.
This has happened across a few different roms, but my main is Team OctOs Oct-N. This is making no sense to me at all. These things will happen after a ROM has already been setup and working for a time, that is what has me scratching my head. The only thing I can think of is some system has changed in the Pixel XL ROMs that I don't know about or something. I always start from a fresh phone, flashing google images, installing the rom the proper way, I always follow the devs install procedure for the most part (depending on the ROM) it is flash rom, flash vendor, flash twrp, reboot into twrp, flash gapps. Everything goes good it runs fine, and then some time after, sometimes a few days later, sometimes a few hours later, one or a combo of the issues listed above happen. I though maybe there was an issue with the actual rom. So i decided to try 1 or 2 other roms but some issue still arrives. Also when twrp wont boot (because it apparently disappeared) I reinstall it properly, and one would think I would be able to boot back into the existing system, but it don't, it always boots right back into twrp.
I am at a complete loss and the only thing I can think of is something has changed with the Pixel system that I am unaware of. Any info would be great I know that this is not a good description on what is actually happening but that's it I have no idea at all. Have a great day and thanks.
I have found that to get TWRP to stick I have to flash the zip and whatever else I'm flashing, then boot into my rom, then boot back into fastboot TWRP and flash the TWRP zip again, then boot back into the rom.
Root is tricky on this phone. Nobody can really answer what's going on there without knowing what month bootloader you are using, what app and what version of the app you are trying to use to root.
The other problems really sound Rom related. If you want to go from a truly fresh start with no chance of any corruption on either partition you might want to run flash-all.bat of the Google factory image separately to partition a and then to partition b. That cleared up problems for me in the past but I'm not sure why.
You might also consider running stock and seeing if the WiFi or status bar problems persist.
xxxtncxxx said:
Ok I am having some serious issues as of late, I am far from an Android expert but have been using and rooting them since Android started, and I am also a Linux user. So as stated in the subject I have been getting these issues (not always together).
Recovery will disappear after a normal reboot.
Root will disappear after a normal reboot.
WiFi is "broken" after a normal reboot (is disabled, and can't be enabled).
My status bar disappears.
This has happened across a few different roms, but my main is Team OctOs Oct-N. This is making no sense to me at all. These things will happen after a ROM has already been setup and working for a time, that is what has me scratching my head. The only thing I can think of is some system has changed in the Pixel XL ROMs that I don't know about or something. I always start from a fresh phone, flashing google images, installing the rom the proper way, I always follow the devs install procedure for the most part (depending on the ROM) it is flash rom, flash vendor, flash twrp, reboot into twrp, flash gapps. Everything goes good it runs fine, and then some time after, sometimes a few days later, sometimes a few hours later, one or a combo of the issues listed above happen. I though maybe there was an issue with the actual rom. So i decided to try 1 or 2 other roms but some issue still arrives. Also when twrp wont boot (because it apparently disappeared) I reinstall it properly, and one would think I would be able to boot back into the existing system, but it don't, it always boots right back into twrp.
I am at a complete loss and the only thing I can think of is something has changed with the Pixel system that I am unaware of. Any info would be great I know that this is not a good description on what is actually happening but that's it I have no idea at all. Have a great day and thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has been a real challenge with this phone (but I'm enjoying it). Anyway, the way I got a good stable set up is flashing the factory image to both slots (a/b), then adb/fastboot to twrp.img and flash ROM, then boot up. Then again the twrp.img and flash the twrp.zip and boot up. Then do the root and boot up , then go back and do the kernel (since it's EX and I want the gestures, I boot it up rooted before I flash EX). This works for me although I'm using Pure Nexus ROM. Hope this helps you, looks similar to what was posted by jhs39.
Hello,
sorry if this has been mentioned anywhere before, but I wasn't able to find something similar.
So I know why way around with my old Nexus 5 in things backing up the phone with Titanium or TWRP, but since it's wifi module died on me I switchted to the HTC 10, which is kinda intimidating to me when it comes to updating to new OS or backing up. With the NExus 5 it was a walk in the park for me.
First, I don't really understand the concept of S-On and S-Off. Don't know if this is related to my problem, just wanted to mention it.
My HTC 10 is rooted, bootloader unlocked, S-On and runs on 7.0 2.41.401.41.
TWRP is the latest available version.
Before I rooted the phone I made a backup of the stock system image etc like explained in one of those "how to root the htc 10" tutorials (no writing allowed).
To root I had to allow writing onto the system partition of course.
Now, I made an TWRP backup. I backed up everything that was available in TWRP. Userdata, cache, system etc.
Few weeks ago I ran into some problems (I though I did, turned out Google App is just weird) and wanted to restore my TWRP backup.
So I did. Went to TWRP and restored the backup from my SD card.
Got no error messages during the process, but when I wanted to boot up the phone the green HTC boot animation did its thing and then froze at the HTC logo, which would result in a bootloop after ~10 minutes of waiting.
Could force the phone to go into bootloader and from there into TWRP, but that's the best I could do.
Also removed SD and SIM card trays, but that didnt do anything.
Had to factory reset and then do a backup via Titanium backup, which is better than nothing but still a pain in the a** because some things just have to be set up manually, which took me quite a while. I honestly don't want do that again anytime soon
Does anyone have an idea what could went wrong or what I did wrong during the backing up and restoring process?
Except for that, I tried to understand how to update to an upcoming version of the OS when the phone is rooted with S-On and how I could keep my userdata? On the Nexus 5 I just manually installed everything via adb except userdata.img and only had to re-root the phone afterwards. I am afraid this isn't possible with the HTC 10, am I right?
The HTC 10 forces encryption and that has broken TWRP restore for me if I try to switch between ROMs. If I switch ROMs then I have to do a full wipe / format. The one time I tried to go back to my original OS I had a similar issue and I ended up flashing the full RUU to get back to stock.
The only time I am able to restore in TWRP is if I'm returning to the same ROM that I am currently running. Even then I usually just restore the data.
So, I tried some custom roms out there it has caused some really odd issues on this device. The first one I tried was CalyxOs, then lineage, and Proton. All are good roms, but not what I am looking for. But somewhere along the way things got wonky to say the least. Now, I am not blamming any rom or dev for "breaking" my device. I flashed these roms knowing there is a risk, and the roms listed above work for others. I'm pretty confident, there is something I did along the way that screwed things up. Some of the issues I have ran in to:
Before I flash anything, I learned a long time ago, make a backup and transfer all data on sdcard to your pc.
I generally use TTBU. But recently, when I tried to manually drag/drop my sdcard backup to my device, not all files gets transferred over. Basically all the .apk.gz files. Which happens to be the core of the the backup for the apps.
I started using another backup program, oandbackup, which transfers fine. But my apps/data only gets properly restored about 20% of the time. I say 20% because out of 10 flash back to stock and restores, only 2 will successfully work.
When flashing the rom I have been working on, I use lingeage recovery. But what worked yesterday, fails tomorrow. My method has been, flash lineage recovery, flash rom, boot, test rom, flash back to stock, restore. However, it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes, it will flash fine, I reboot back to recovery and flash gapps, boot system and the loops begin. Flashing a different kernel fixes the bootloop. Oddly though, the stock kernel booted fine on the last flash (mind you, no changes in kernel or rom code). There is a slew of roadblocks and walls I have slammed in to, but this is just to give you an idea as to what I've been trying to work with.
Now, after flashing a custom rom and then flashing back to stock, I always wipe data. But the most recent issue I have encountered, I flashed back to stock. I was on "b" partition. After the initial flash, it boots to fastbootd. Oddly, I was stuck in stock recovery with the little android guy laying on his back. I hit power then vol up and got in to recovery where I selected fastboot and the fashing process continued. After my phone booted, I rebooted back to bootloader, switched to "a" partition, rebooted bootloader, and ran the stock flash script. This way, in my hopes, I would get a fresh and clean flash all the way around. Again, the whole recovery thing happened again, and I resolved it the same way. But when the rom rebooted, bootloops which eventually kicked me back to bootloader. I switched to slot "b" and the rom booted, went thru setup and restored my data, but most apps failed. Luckily, the 1 game I cared about restored this time.
So, yesterday, I wanted to check out stock recovery a little closer, and see if I could use adb. When I tried adb pull <random file on sdcard>, adb did not connect. So, I tried to reboot. Unfortunately, I got stuck at the google boot splash. To recover the device, I had to flash my boot.img.
This morning, I set out on a mission to try and get things fixed back up. I know slot "a" is not bootable, so I figured I would start there. I went to stock images and instead of downloading, I used the online flash tool. nSince I was on slot "b", it flashed to "b" even though I choose to wipe data and force flash all partitions. I tried booting slot "a" but it failed. So, I manually switched to slot "a" and ran the online flasher again. Now slot "a' and "b" both boot successfully. Then I started restoring my sdcard. It is 4.2gb of data. Honestly, not a lot IMO. But it took an extremely long time to restore it. After restoring my sdcard, I ran oandbackup, but I only restored data for 4 apps, which was successful. Everything seems to be running smoothly, and I was able to flash a custom kernel, root, etc with no issues. I guess, when I flash the final beta of my rom, I will see if I got things fixed up or not.
As I write this, I can't help but wonder, what is the root cause of all these issues? One thing I thought of was my cable. I was using one of the usb cables for my oneplus 6t. I switched to the stock cable to test things. I wiped all my data from the sdcard and then restored it with the stock cable. Things went A LOT quicker 928 minutes with op6t cable/2 minutes on stock cable). Since I have things to do today, I have to put this aside for now. But I wanted to get everyone's thoughts and input on this. Have I done something terribly wrong along the way that has caused these issues? Could the cable I was using be the root of all evil in this case? Is this just that wonky of a device, that it has happened to others and a great deal of patience is needed when trying to work on the pixel 4a 5g?