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Hi XDA. I'm looking for help here, because i have't found anything like i need in many researches that i made. I have a qualcomm based phone that is comercialized only in my country; it's based on ZTE parts but it is sold over a brand called Vtelca.
There's litteraly any official way to flash this phone neither than an official firmware. The only thing that one can find are custom roms that are made by local coockers, based on system dumps of functional phones. There's a port of CWM that one can install in this phone over ADB. One can be able to flash CWM when the phone is operative, but if the phone has a soft brick, one can just do anything.
Theres no fastboot in this device, so one can't flash images over there, but there is a way to connect the phone that mounts all of its partitions (litteraly all of them, including the recovery one). Only linux can obviously read all of this partitions because of the filesystems, and here is my question:
Is there a way to write an image into a partition?
My theory is that if i know which of the partitions corresponds to android recovery, i 'should' be able to write the recovery image into it. Right?
Thank you in advance, even if there's no way to do this.
Received the tablet in the mail, and now looking to root via Magisk (and ideally a custom recovery like TWRP).
I found this video describing a way to download the stock ROM from Teclast:
Has anyone achieved root on this device? Can anyone confirm Treble ROM compatability for GSI A/B?
On the russian forum 4pda somebody posted the patched boot.img and vbmeta.img files required for rooting.
If anyone is registered on the forum he might try to grab the files, for me it gives 404 error when trying to download, though im not registered..
Teclast T40 Plus - Обсуждение - 4PDA
Teclast T40 Plus - Обсуждение, Планшет, 10,4
4pda.to
NightLord said:
On the russian forum 4pda somebody posted the patched boot.img and vbmeta.img files required for rooting.
If anyone is registered on the forum he might try to grab the files, for me it gives 404 error when trying to download, though im not registered..
Teclast T40 Plus - Обсуждение - 4PDA
Teclast T40 Plus - Обсуждение, Планшет, 10,4
4pda.to
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good find, but the link no longer works. It gives me a 404: https://4pda.to/forum/dl/post/24458874/T40_Plus_root.7z
My guess is it would work if we were logged in, its just that i cant create an account since i cannot get past rhe russian captcha
Yeah, I also can't register without knowing the Russian keyboard layout and how to identify the characters. Perhaps someone with this knowledge can register and attach the required images to root here?
Slightly off topic while someone manages to grab the files from 4pda
Do you actually get 50000+ gpu score in antutu with the t40? I have the maxpad i11 which is in theory the same hardware, and I only get 42000. I even flashed the t40 firmware on the device, but gpu score didnt budge.
To be on topic: if you want root, you may also flash phhuson's treble GSI rom-s. I tried his version of android 12, and it works, and has root.
NightLord said:
Slightly off topic while someone manages to grab the files from 4pda
Do you actually get 50000+ gpu score in antutu with the t40? I have the maxpad i11 which is in theory the same hardware, and I only get 42000. I even flashed the t40 firmware on the device, but gpu score didnt budge.
To be on topic: if you want root, you may also flash phhuson's treble GSI rom-s. I tried his version of android 12, and it works, and has root.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These ROMs? https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/releases
ForgottenSolstace said:
These ROMs? https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/releases
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.
You can either install them via DSU as dual-boot OS beside your stock rom, or just flash system partition (inside super) via fastbootd (you are going to have to delete product partition to have enough space inside super for the system image) and use them as primary OS.
Gotcha:
Just ordered a T40 Plus, did you manage to get root?
Flashing the boot and vbmeta partitions with the images attached to my previous post will grant you root on the stock t40 plus firmware.
I myself moved on to using android 12 gsi images.
NightLord said:
Flashing the boot and vbmeta partitions with the images attached to my previous post will grant you root on the stock t40 plus firmware.
I myself moved on to using android 12 gsi images.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi NightLord, can you explain easily the root steps for this device? do we need the software that we see in the video at the beginning or is ADB enough?
Marynboy78 said:
Hi NightLord, can you explain easily the root steps for this device? do we need the software that we see in the video at the beginning or is ADB enough?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey,
You need to use the spreadtrum research download tool (RDT), not the one seen in tthe video in the first post.
See this guide on how to use the RDT.
The basic concept is that you need to download the official firmware from the teclast homepage, load it into RDT, uncheck all partitions (save for those that are compulsory and cannot be unchecked), select only boot and vbmeta partitions, and as images to be flashed you need to browse the ones found in the archive I posted, instead of those found in the original firmware package.
Begin flashing, your device will perform a hard reset, and then you should boot into rooted firmware.
Theoretically you should be able to flash both partitions (boot and vbmeta) via fastboot too, but when I tried, i got an error message saying boot.img was too large or something. Flashing via RDT went without problem. The only caveat is that flashing via RDT will always hard reset your device.
NightLord said:
Flashing the boot and vbmeta partitions with the images attached to my previous post will grant you root on the stock t40 plus firmware.
I myself moved on to using android 12 gsi images.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How to install android 12 gsi on this device?
marinzrncic said:
How to install android 12 gsi on this device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First you need to unlock the bootloader. You need to be patient when you are flashing the unlock, my device took some 10 mins to complete, but in the end it succeeded (on the 2nd try, mind you.)
Here is a guide for unlocking in windows, though it is in russian (Im attaching the required modified fastboot in case you cannot download it from 4pda).
When you're done unlocking the bootloader, you've already done the hard part.
Next, download your preferred GSI image from Google, from phhusson's, or whatever else you find (Pixel Experience for eg.). Mind you, that the image from Google contains the Android 12L version.
Next you will flash your active system partition with the GSI image. To do that, initate ADB connection to your tablet, then enter fastbootd, by issuing the command:
fastboot reboot fastboot
you can check your active system slot by:
fastboot getvar all (but it will be slot "a" unless you have received an OTA update previously)
you need to free up some space by deleting the logical partition product otherwise you wont be able to flash your gsi:
fastboot delete-logical-partition product_a
(in case your active slot is "a")
then you can move forward to actually flashing your GSI:
fastboot flash system_a whateverisyourimagefilename.img
Lastly, you will need to wipe userdata, which can be done on the tablet by switching to recovery from fastbootd, and then selecting wipe userdata, or maybe the fastboot -w command does the same.
Reboot, and enjoy your GSI.
I'm using the Google 12L GSI, and it is perfectly stable for daily usage. For bluetooth audio to work, you will have to disable bluetooth a2dp hardware offload in developer options.
NightLord said:
First you need to unlock the bootloader. You need to be patient when you are flashing the unlock, my device took some 10 mins to complete, but in the end it succeeded (on the 2nd try, mind you.)
Here is a guide for unlocking in windows, though it is in russian (Im attaching the required modified fastboot in case you cannot download it from 4pda).
When you're done unlocking the bootloader, you've already done the hard part.
Next, download your preferred GSI image from Google, from phhusson's, or whatever else you find (Pixel Experience for eg.). Mind you, that the image from Google contains the Android 12L version.
Next you will flash your active system partition with the GSI image. To do that, initate ADB connection to your tablet, then enter fastbootd, by issuing the command:
fastboot reboot fastboot
you can check your active system slot by:
fastboot getvar all (but it will be slot "a" unless you have received an OTA update previously)
you need to free up some space by deleting the logical partition product otherwise you wont be able to flash your gsi:
fastboot delete-logical-partition product_a
(in case your active slot is "a")
then you can move forward to actually flashing your GSI:
fastboot flash system_a whateverisyourimagefilename.img
Lastly, you will need to wipe userdata, which can be done on the tablet by switching to recovery from fastbootd, and then selecting wipe userdata, or maybe the fastboot -w command does the same.
Reboot, and enjoy your GSI.
I'm using the Google 12L GSI, and it is perfectly stable for daily usage. For bluetooth audio to work, you will have to disable bluetooth a2dp hardware offload in developer options.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you very much
NightLord said:
Hey,
You need to use the spreadtrum research download tool (RDT), not the one seen in tthe video in the first post.
See this guide on how to use the RDT.
The basic concept is that you need to download the official firmware from the teclast homepage, load it into RDT, uncheck all partitions (save for those that are compulsory and cannot be unchecked), select only boot and vbmeta partitions, and as images to be flashed you need to browse the ones found in the archive I posted, instead of those found in the original firmware package.
Begin flashing, your device will perform a hard reset, and then you should boot into rooted firmware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did we need unlock bootloader first or we can flash root without unlock bootloader?
Thx
ardianz said:
Did we need unlock bootloader first or we can flash root without unlock bootloader?
Thx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no idea because I havent tried yet. But I would guess it might be possible that you can flash the patched boot.img along with vbmeta.img with RDT, and it might work, if they do pass Android Verified Boot check.
NightLord said:
Gotcha:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
will these files work on android 10 or android 11? I have a unisoc T618 and unisoc T310. I was hoping to flash both tablets to get root access.
and also do you have a twrp for T40_plus or any unisoc generic twrp?
So I dont have any OS on my phone, just a pc and a custom recovery. Is there a way to find out my exact build number, firmware version, etc? My build number goes: RMX2030EX_xxxx-xxxx something something. I wanna find out what's next to it cause Im seeing stock ROMs go like RMX2030EX_11_C.75_210917. The last time I flashed C73 (I remember mine started with C5x but idk what's next to it) it got EVEN MORE BRICKED so I wanna be careful now. Anyone can help me?
Edit: My custom recovery is PitchBlack.
in principle this information should be available to the recovery. But i am not aware of a recovery actually showing the data. You may do a backup of your kernel partition to a micro sd card and examine the data on your computer to find it somewhere. But I never did this before, so I do not know how easy or hard this will be.
PauSteu said:
in principle this information should be available to the recovery. But i am not aware of a recovery actually showing the data. You may do a backup of your kernel partition to a micro sd card and examine the data on your computer to find it somewhere. But I never did this before, so I do not know how easy or hard this will be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do I do that?
I did see my phone's codename/product which is RMX2030EX in the recovery, I also did the getprop in the terminal of it and I don't see anything that goes: RMX2030EX_11_C.75_210917. Maybe I missed it? Can you teach me how to look for it or the alternative, to back up my kernel? I only have an OTG and a USB which works in the recovery, not an SD card. Will that be okay?
At least TWRP recovery should be able to backup any partition to any storage you can mount. You did not write which custom recovery is installed. That would be an interesting information.
As I told you before I have never examined a kernel image to find the version number, but this is what I would do:
mount your kernel image on your computer
Code:
mount <filename> <mountpoint>
on Linux, on windows you may need to install additional software to do that. At least I am not aware of a windows program capable of doing that
Examine the files and find some kind of Manifest file to find the version number.
I you have acess to many or all possible Kernel images, you could do a comparison which might be faster.
oh my custom recovery is pitchblack custom recovery
koarc lkas said:
oh my custom recovery is pitchblack custom recovery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem is there is a longer story behind this, I cant flash the TWRP to my phone and if I did, it just reboots and keeps rebooting, stuck in fastboot mode while rebooting so.
** UNOFFICIAL A-TEAM RELEASE**
*******Testing ONLY*******
**testing has only been done on GN2200 July patch device but should atleast boot into twrp on other sec patch on GN2200 devices***
***Let us know if not***
*****HEED THE WARNING OF IMPENDING APOCALYPSE, DOOM, BOOTLOOPS , BRIMSTONE AND FIRE, AND ALSO TWRP ******
***NOBODY IS RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU DO WITH THIS EXCEPT YOU***
***DO NOT BUILD AND FLASH THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOUR DOING***
****DONT DO ANYTHING I SAY, I CANT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT I SAY OR DO*****
**THIS IS AN ** UNOFICIAL RELEASE ** SO DONT GO CRYING TO ANYONE THAT YOU MADE YOURSELF AN EXPENSIVE PAPERWEIGHT IF YOU USE ANYTHING IN THIS POST***
********* THE RESPNSIBILITY LIES SOLELY UPON YOU***
***FLASHING IN CURRENT STATE DOES NOT BOOT INTO SYSTEM****
****READ EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING******
******ONLY POSTING THIS FOR DEV PURPOSES*******
******Huge THANKS to PizzaG for this!!!******
***Thanks to Eduardo as well for his contributions, he may still be working on his own release***
Am posting this with a copy/paste i posted in telegram group..
We need people with the knowledge/skills and experience to help get this TWRP finished AND/OR work out the bugs.
GitHub - PizzaG/recovery_device_oneplus_OP515AL1
Contribute to PizzaG/recovery_device_oneplus_OP515AL1 development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
*this is not ready for release but the source is here for anyone who can build upon it*
touch is not working
you cant fastboot boot on this device so DO NOT flash this to your device without a backup of your stock/current boot image
issues we are having is no touch, can't mount /data, and so far cant boot into system with the recovery installed so if you want to use it youll need to flash this to boot, use it for whatever and then flash stock boot back, if your magisk patched youll need to flash the backup of that patched boot image you made before flashing this in order to get back into your system....... i have sort of found a slight work around for having to keep flashing the boot partitions until someone can get this to boot by placing my current boot image on an sdcard along with the twrp, flash the twrp to the active boot partition, boot into twrp, install image and install your backed up boot image to the current slot, then go back to advanced and install twrp to ramdisk and select and install the twrp image to the ramdisk, if your magisk patched you need to flash magisk zip right now, you can adb shell into twrp to pull a copy of this boot image if you want and i have flashed my "twrp-ramdisk installed boot image" on the Slot that my system is on and stock/backup boot image to inactive slot because its the only way to boot back to system for now without reflashing the stock(backed up) boot image back to the slot. and reboot into bootloader, change active and reboot and your back into your system.... when you need twrp you can set active to the other slot, it will bootloop once into bootloader and choose recovery to get back to twrp... when done reboot to bootloader and set active back to the other slot and reboot into system.............otg mouse works, adb works, mtp works, some work has been done on the touch but thats still not working yet, everything seems to be mounting except data............. big shout out to PizzaG for this
***this is a very round-about way to get a currently buggy twrp on the device but if you have a usb-c adapter and mouse you can navigate twrp....***
PizzaG doesnt have the device and has spent more time than anyone could possibly ask someone to spend on this for free... I dont have the skills required yet to really work on this. I have tested as much as possible and here it is for those who can build and work on it. i dont recommend releasing in its current form because im sure alot of people will be complaining and bricking their devices. if you can build it im sure you can work on it and should have the skills to atleast recover and have the sense to make backups first.......
Thanks again to everyone who has already donated the valuable time working on this for us and to everyone who will follow and build upon this!
You can find the telegram group for our device here:
You can find the A-Team in telegram
Also FYI in case you missed the post about our kernel source, it can be found here:
GitHub - OnePlusOSS/android_kernel_msm-5.4_oneplus_sm6375 at oneplus/sm6375_r_12.0.1_oneplus_nord_n20_5g
Contribute to OnePlusOSS/android_kernel_msm-5.4_oneplus_sm6375 development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
If anyone with experience building twrp and especially for OnePlus devices needs a tester or any files from the device hit me up on telegram @PsYk0n4uT2 and I will do my best to provide whatever you need and test builds along with providing logs.
heres a compiled boot image from the above tree as of 10/02/2022.
**remeber it DOES NOT boot to system, this is twrp only, not installed into recovery ramdisk yet. so BACKUP YOUR STOCK(current) boot image FIRST**** you will have to flash your stock(current) boot image back to boot back into your system. you can sort of get around this by above mentioned method BUT here it is for the GN2200 anyways. working on my July patched device and my May patched device so it should work for other GN2200 sec patches too...
***BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP*****
also cant change active slot from twrp, must reboot to bootloader to change active slot
Heres TWRP installed to ramdisk on a july patched boot image. does not boot to system but since it doesnt you should still be able to use this on any patch for testing purposes.....
You can backup your boot image and flash your current boot image to inactive slot and flash this to active slot by selecting recovery from bootloader after it loops once.... use twrp then go back to bootloader and change active and reboot to get back into your system.
**BACKUP YOUR CURRENT BOOT IMAGE****
***DOES NOT BOOT TO SYSTEM**
***YOU WILL NEED YOUR CURRENT BOOT IMAGE TO BOOT YOUR SYSTEM< YOU SHOULD ALREADY HAVE A BACKUP OF YOUR STOCK IMAGE IN THE CASE THAT YOU ARE MAGISK PATCHED ALREADY< KEEP A COPY OF BOTH IN CASE YOU DECIDE TO WIPE DATA< YOU WILL NOT BOOT BACK INTO YOUR SYSTEM WITH A MAGISK PATCHED BOOT IMAGE IF YOU WIPE DATA*******
if someone can get their system to boot after installing the TWRP from post 4 or their own build after personal edits please post here how you were able to achieve the install and maintain booting into system..
currently twrp indicates that path to /mnt could not be found and cant mount /data .. i think if someone could fix this maybe some progress could be made
ScarletWizard said:
I wonder if TWRP will work for devices with a serial number defeicy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
halfway working on mine, just isnt finished yet, we need someone who knows alot more about this than i do. another dev is working on twrp but needs a device. the serial wont affect anything else other than the oneplus care app and getting the unlock token..... other than that u have full functionality.... the one posted above needs ALOT of work to finish. no touch yet but it could work for SOME things....
I know C/C++ at a decent level, however; I don't have much experience with low level stuff (especially dealing with bootloaders and other specific proprietary android kernel stuff). If there is anything that needs testing, I am down for it since this is just a secondary phone for me and I won't be too upset if it explodes.
I'm going to attempt this
[ SOLUTION ] [ MTK ] to Fix Touch not Working on TWRP / Philz Due to Kernel Disabled Touch.
In this tutorial, i'm going to show how i managed to patch kernel to enable touch in recovery TWRP / Philz. WARNING : This worked fo...
factopea.blogspot.com
It's written for mtk device but might have similar enough instructions to port for qcom kernel,
But I believe this is what is needed to get the TWRP touch going
Is the trwp.fstab using the right version? Both have different
Code:
/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata /data f2fs noatime,nosuid,nodev,discard,inlinecrypt,reserve_root=32768,resgid=1065,fsync_mode=nobarrier latemount,wait,resize,check,formattable,fileencryption=aes-256-xts:aes-256-cts:v2+inlinecrypt_optimized+wrappedkey_v0,keydirectory=/metadata/vold/metadata_encryption,metadata_encryption=aes-256-xts:wrappedkey_v0,quota,reservedsize=128M,checkpoint=fs
Try this instead in twrp.fstab
Code:
/data f2fs /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata flags=fileencryption=ice:aes-256-cts;wrappedkey;keydirectory=/metadata/vold/metadata_encryption
Techted89 said:
Is the trwp.fstab using the right version? Both have different
Code:
/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata /data f2fs noatime,nosuid,nodev,discard,inlinecrypt,reserve_root=32768,resgid=1065,fsync_mode=nobarrier latemount,wait,resize,check,formattable,fileencryption=aes-256-xts:aes-256-cts:v2+inlinecrypt_optimized+wrappedkey_v0,keydirectory=/metadata/vold/metadata_encryption,metadata_encryption=aes-256-xts:wrappedkey_v0,quota,reservedsize=128M,checkpoint=fs
Try this instead in twrp.fstab
Code:
/data f2fs /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata flags=fileencryption=ice:aes-256-cts;wrappedkey;keydirectory=/metadata/vold/metadata_encryption
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i just unpacked the twrp image with AIK and made the suggested edits and repacked, reflashed, same...... another person is working on twrp and has gotten much of the fstab corrected in their build but their keeping their source closed til they get it ready for release and is still very far from being finished with it and doesnt have much time to work on it right now so we are just kinda stuck waiting on someone that knows what their doing to help get this going. the other person has touch working on theirs so i know its possible i just dont know how long it will be before we see a beta even
Techted89 said:
Is the trwp.fstab using the right version? Both have different
Code:
/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata /data f2fs noatime,nosuid,nodev,discard,inlinecrypt,reserve_root=32768,resgid=1065,fsync_mode=nobarrier latemount,wait,resize,check,formattable,fileencryption=aes-256-xts:aes-256-cts:v2+inlinecrypt_optimized+wrappedkey_v0,keydirectory=/metadata/vold/metadata_encryption,metadata_encryption=aes-256-xts:wrappedkey_v0,quota,reservedsize=128M,checkpoint=fs
Try this instead in twrp.fstab
Code:
/data f2fs /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata flags=fileencryption=ice:aes-256-cts;wrappedkey;keydirectory=/metadata/vold/metadata_encryption
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
also i see a recovery.fstab instead of twrp.fstab in /system/etc. is this what your referring to?
You need both from what iv read ,. TWRP.flags is a module that rewrites the stab at a certain point which may be the reason it's not compiling but I will post. Recovery.fstab is supposed to be a copy paste from the boot.img and gives the general mount partitions locations,. TWRP.fstab is mounted using the same partitions but different format/flag structure to be available to TWRP .
Techted89 said:
You need both from what iv read ,. TWRP.flags is a module that rewrites the stab at a certain point which may be the reason it's not compiling but I will post. Recovery.fstab is supposed to be a copy paste from the boot.img and gives the general mount partitions locations,. TWRP.fstab is mounted using the same partitions but different format/flag structure to be available to TWRP .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting article above. Were you able to get that to work? I know it says MTK but seems like mechanism should be the same, or atleast I would assume anyways that the function would be very similar in the case of a flag. Was told you needed to use original kernel but then I couldn't get that to boot period. I'm out of my area of knowledge at this point but always willing to learn.
Also I tried messing around a little with the f stab and TWRP flags I was told that TWRP flags is pretty much the same as the twrp.fstab... also this build needs to have something added to the drivers I do believe that this is somehow related to USB touch it is a goodix gt9886 touch panel using the Samsung 9886 drivers. Maybe the init's need some help here as well.
I have the programming knowwledge that TWRP would require, but have not as of yet created one as my devices were typically readily complete before-hand. Once my device is back up, and running I am going to boot into Ubuntu and give it a go.
I need some excuse to have learned assembly x86, c, c++, Java, Python, and rust and have been eyeing learning scripting so it could be a fun side project assuming it is still incomplete as of the moment?
Is it normal for manufacturers to use components from other's in their builds? The kernel posted seemed to indicate at least a couple Samsung files included.
Well C is a guarantee possibly some C++ as well and definitely some sh scripting if you know rust and know how to attach it to C well enough that could add more possibilities I would imagine. The recovery is from my understanding in the boot image Android Image Kitchen would help you see it unmodified if that is the case.
I found a unofficial TWRP that flashes to the boot partition, and works pretty damn well, id have to say! I am not an experienced developer, I just like to flash around on my phone in my spare time.. Anyways here y'all go:
I am down while I got partitions backed up to the cloud.
Hi! I was on the February update and was trying to update to the March update using the factory images.
While updating I was faced with sparse file too big or invalid error. Then my device was stuck at bootloader. After that, I proceeded to stupidly change my active partition from b to a. Now my device won't boot at all. Is there any way I can recover from this? Or is there a chance at all?
Xeust said:
Hi! I was on the February update and was trying to update to the March update using the factory images.
While updating I was faced with sparse file too big or invalid error. Then my device was stuck at bootloader. After that, I proceeded to stupidly change my active partition from b to a. Now my device won't boot at all. Is there any way I can recover from this? Or is there a chance at all?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Boot to fastboot mode and install TWRP or any custom recovery on both slots.
Now reboot to recovery and change the active partition.
Xeust said:
Hi! I was on the February update and was trying to update to the March update using the factory images.
While updating I was faced with sparse file too big or invalid error. Then my device was stuck at bootloader. After that, I proceeded to stupidly change my active partition from b to a. Now my device won't boot at all. Is there any way I can recover from this? Or is there a chance at all?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What happens when you turn your device on? Are you able to boot to bootloader? Does the screen turn on at all?
If the file size was wrong, you were probably using the wrong file...although there's been issues with the latest Platform Tools, and bad USB cables can cause problems too.
TheMystic said:
Boot to fastboot mode and install TWRP or any custom recovery on both slots.
Now reboot to recovery and change the active partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TWRP isn't really relevant to A/B devices unless installing a custom ROM. If he's able to get into bootloader, TWRP isn't going to be any more help than reflashing the factory image.
V0latyle said:
TWRP isn't really relevant to A/B devices unless installing a custom ROM. If he's able to get into bootloader, TWRP isn't going to be any more help than reflashing the factory image.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In case of a bootloop, one can boot into recovery if it is installed on both slots. And from there the active partition can be changed, and this is possible only using custom recovery.
This is my understanding. I could be wrong because it's been a while since I got away from all these stuff, which are also becoming increasingly complex for no proportionate returns.
TheMystic said:
In case of a bootloop, one can boot into recovery if it is installed on both slots. And from there the active partition can be changed, and this is possible only using custom recovery.
This is my understanding. I could be wrong because it's been a while since I got away from all these stuff, which are also becoming increasingly complex for no proportionate returns.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem is, the recovery kernel is packaged into the boot image alongside ramdisk and the system kernel. Most A/B devices like Pixels do not have a recovery partition. TWRP does not support the compression that's used for the stock recovery as packaged, and if you flash the TWRP image to /boot, it overwrites everything else - meaning that your system will only boot to TWRP, because that's the only thing in /boot.
You could potentially live boot TWRP since this doesn't flash the boot partition, but again this is generally unnecessary and won't be of much help when you can simply reflash the original boot image
V0latyle said:
The problem is, the recovery kernel is packaged into the boot image alongside ramdisk and the system kernel. Most A/B devices like Pixels do not have a recovery partition. TWRP does not support the compression that's used for the stock recovery as packaged, and if you flash the TWRP image to /boot, it overwrites everything else - meaning that your system will only boot to TWRP, because that's the only thing in /boot.
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Click to collapse
Are all these done to enhance security or discourage custom mods? Or both?
For a short time when I had rooted my OnePlus 8T, I would flash TWRP on the inactive slot. That's because Oxygen OS would replace any custom recovery with its own recovery during boot, so this allowed me to boot into the inactive slot (which now has TWRP) and then run commands from there, so I don't have to use a PC each time.
TheMystic said:
Are all these done to enhance security or discourage custom mods? Or both?
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Click to collapse
Neither. It's just compression to reduce the amount of space the recovery kernel takes up in the boot image. If TWRP supported this compression we could potentially replace the stock recovery with TWRP. But, there isn't really much need to do this; most custom ROMs for the Pixel series just flash everything via web ADB.
TheMystic said:
For a short time when I had rooted my OnePlus 8T, I would flash TWRP on the inactive slot. That's because Oxygen OS would replace any custom recovery with its own recovery during boot, so this allowed me to boot into the inactive slot (which now has TWRP) and then run commands from there, so I don't have to use a PC each time.
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Click to collapse
That's not the case here. The boot slot cannot be changed without booting into TWRP. You could potentially install TWRP to boot_b, then set slot B as active; upon the next boot, the device will load TWRP. You could then do whatever you need to in TWRP, then set slot A as active, but you'd have no way of getting back to TWRP.
Xeust said:
Hi! I was on the February update and was trying to update to the March update using the factory images.
While updating I was faced with sparse file too big or invalid error. Then my device was stuck at bootloader. After that, I proceeded to stupidly change my active partition from b to a. Now my device won't boot at all. Is there any way I can recover from this? Or is there a chance at all?
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The likely reason this occurred is because you used Platform Tools 34+. These 34 versions can't boot into fastbootd. For now you should be using Platform Tools 33.0.3.
You can't just switch slots and boot up the slot you switched to. You can only boot into the slot where the last firmware was flashed to. Therefore, when you changed your slot from b to a, you would have to flash the firmware onto slot a before it would boot into that slot.
If you can still get into the bootloader/fastboot mode, try flashing the factory image or using Android Flash Tool.
Lughnasadh said:
The likely reason this occurred is because you used Platform Tools 34+. These 34 versions can't boot into fastbootd. For now you should be using Platform Tools 33.0.3.
You can't just switch slots and boot up the slot you switched to. You can only boot into the slot where the last firmware was flashed to. Therefore, when you changed your slot from b to a, you would have to flash the firmware onto slot a before it would boot into that slot.
If you can still get into the bootloader/fastboot mode, try flashing the factory image or using Android Flash Tool.
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For now its not booting at all. My pc can still detect it for a moment while I'm holding the power button but its not booting into bootloader so I can't do anything at the moment afaik.
V0latyle said:
What happens when you turn your device on? Are you able to boot to bootloader? Does the screen turn on at all?
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Nope. Nothing and as I mentioned above, my pc only detects it while I hold the power button. Aside from that, its only a black screen.
Is there any way to flash the firmware or change the partition through other means that does not require bootloader/fastboot?
Xeust said:
For now its not booting at all. My pc can still detect it for a moment while I'm holding the power button but its not booting into bootloader so I can't do anything at the moment afaik.
Nope. Nothing and as I mentioned above, my pc only detects it while I hold the power button. Aside from that its only a black screen.
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Click to collapse
Ah. It sounds like the bootloader can't start, so the device is probably in QUSB mode. Unfortunately your only recourse is to have it repaired, as the files and tools you'd need to fix this are not publicly available. While it's possible to find the software (QPST/QFIL) you won't be able to find the necessary binary images to reflash your device.
Xeust said:
For now its not booting at all. My pc can still detect it for a moment while I'm holding the power button but its not booting into bootloader so I can't do anything at the moment afaik.
Nope. Nothing and as I mentioned above, my pc only detects it while I hold the power button. Aside from that its only a black screen.
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There have been several people who have ended up like you after using Platform Tools 34+. None have been able to recover that I know of. The issue is known to Google (they are working on a fix). Can you confirm you were indeed using Platform Tools 34.0.0 or 34.0.1?
Lughnasadh said:
There have been several people who have ended up like you after using Platform Tools 34+. None have been able to recover that I know of. The issue is known to Google (they are working on a fix). Can you confirm you were indeed using Platform Tools 34.0.0 or 34.0.1?
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Click to collapse
Yes it was the 34.0.1
V0latyle said:
Ah. It sounds like the bootloader can't start, so the device is probably in QUSB mode. Unfortunately your only recourse is to have it repaired, as the files and tools you'd need to fix this are not publicly available. While it's possible to find the software (QPST/QFIL) you won't be able to find the necessary binary images to reflash your device.
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If there's nothing I can do on my own, is it still possible to get it repaired? Or my only option is to send it back to google?
Xeust said:
Yes it was the 34.0.1
If there's nothing I can do on my own, is it still possible to get it repaired? Or my only option is to send it back to google?
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If you're still under warranty, try to get repair that way. Warranty or no warranty, Google will probably refer you to a repair center like uBreakiFix.
V0latyle said:
If you're still under warranty, try to get repair that way. Warranty or no warranty, Google will probably refer you to a repair center like uBreakiFix.
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Unfortunately not under warranty anymore. And its hard to reach google. or ubreakifix from my country :/
Thank you everyone. I conclude that my chances are pretty slim so I guess I'll consider getting a new phone.
Xeust said:
Unfortunately not under warranty anymore. And its hard to reach google. or ubreakifix from my country :/
Thank you everyone. I conclude that my chances are pretty slim so I guess I'll consider getting a new phone.
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Click to collapse
If you do end up contacting Google, you can refer them to this issue. Frankly it's there fault. They know their current Platform Tools are borked and yet still leave them up on the site for people to download and use.
Anyway, I wish you luck.
For those of you having the Platform Tools 34+ bug, as I did because I'm old and stupid at times, you may want to go thank this guy since using the 33.0.3 version of the PLatform Tools
did the trick for me.
V0latyle said:
Neither. It's just compression to reduce the amount of space the recovery kernel takes up in the boot image. If TWRP supported this compression we could potentially replace the stock recovery with TWRP. But, there isn't really much need to do this; most custom ROMs for the Pixel series just flash everything via web ADB.
That's not the case here. The boot slot cannot be changed without booting into TWRP. You could potentially install TWRP to boot_b, then set slot B as active; upon the next boot, the device will load TWRP. You could then do whatever you need to in TWRP, then set slot A as active, but you'd have no way of getting back to TWRP.
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Wait, hold up. TWRP? On the Pixel 6? That exists?
(edit: nevermind, think I misread)
Deleted, since it's not for here.
Jaitsu said:
Wait, hold up. TWRP? On the Pixel 6? That exists?
(edit: nevermind, think I misread)
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That What I want to know!