[Q] Quick Method of Mass Enterprise Deployment Custom ROM's for Nexus 7? - Nexus 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Is there any way to image a custom ROM (for example) 10 Nexus 7 tablets at once? I ask as my job is trying to figure out a time-saving solution as most Google searches and forum searches say that it's a one-by-one ordeal.

Don't think so... Although flashing through fastboot or recovery really doesn't take too long.

Call up Asus and tell them you want to buy 10,000 tablets @ MSRP - but with your ROM on it. 100% time savings.
If that doesn't work, you are going to need to unlock the bootloader for each. That is only a one by one if you have just the one laptop.
Borrow some extra laptops and go hire some day laborers down at the local Home Depot. Maybe buy some USB hubs and extra cables if the laborers speak your local language and can follow instructions well.
Before that all happens you could cobble together your own boot image which manually brings up WiFi, mounts a SMB share from your WiFi LAN, downloads your ROM across wifi and then flashes that ROM. (You only need a command file in /cache/recovery to get somebody's else's non-graphical /sbin/recovery started on that job) A 5 Mb boot image will dance down the USB cable in a couple seconds, and the cable can be yanked almost as soon as the boot begins. After that, the tablet takes over doing your scripted evil bidding without human intervention.
For that, you will need only a kernel that deals with CIFS mounts and a non-graphical /sbin/recovery. But lucky you; someone has already built them for you and and you can kype them right off of XDA for free. Write your scripts and fire up mkbootimg.
Buy both devs a cup of coffee each and tell your manager that you got some day laborers to do all the work. Yay! No insurance premiums or workman's comp!
Promotion time? Yes. Assuredly. Happy days.

korockinout13: That was on par of what I was expecting... =\
bftb0: I wish it was 10,000+ units LOL! It's more like an academic deployment of 50 - 100 I'd estimate.
On the latter idea, is the custom kernel stuff in a Development section sticky? If not, do you have a link to it? Cause honestly that sounds like the best and most pain-free way of doing the images: push the boot image via USB, yank the tablet from the USB cable and put it on a charger, then continue to the next tablet.
The main reason I am asking is cause I'll be doing the imaging and I really don't want to babysit 50 - 100 Nexus 7 tablets on top of doing my daily duties. Being able to do a semi-automated deployment would be awesome and allow me to keep productive.

I have looked into this for a couple hours.
It might indeed be possible, but not without quite a bit more work. In fact, a significant enough effort that it might actually take someone unfamiliar with the territory more time than it takes to flash 100 tablets (I estimate that effort at about somewhere between 15 and 20 man-hours if done in a serial fashion with one "flashing station". Seems like a better approach would involve more than one "flashing station", though.)
I looked at current CWM and TWRP recoveries. In terms of pre-built stuff that is symlinked to the busybox, I note that TWRP have "tftp" and "ftp" and "wget", whereas CWM doesn't symlink any tool name with network functionality to it's busybox. The thinking here was that if a CIFS mount could be avoided by pulling file(s) down to the tablet with wget or ftp, that could simplify things - even raw IP could be used.
TWRP (and CWM) configures the kernel with
CONFIG_CIFS=m
but neither provide the kernel modules in their shipped recovery, nor the proprietary Broadcom drivers for the Broadcom 4330 WiFi/Bluetooth combo phy. (The latter is readily available though).
I kanged the latter into a booted TWRP recovery manually, and the firmware load seemed to take but there were other dhd_bus errors. Even if it had taken, there is still an lack of wpa_supplicant. That can be overcome by yanking one from elsewhere, but most of them are dynamically linked. That's not a big deal either - the supporting linker and shared libraries could in principle also be kanged into the recovery ramdisk as long as there is enough space in the boot partition. You have to recursively examine the shared libraries for dependencies though - one can pull in others that are not first-descendant dependents of "wpa_supplicant". (It needs stuff like SSL libs, etc).
But there is more; for example, examining the config for TWRP 2.4.1.0:
grep BCM config
# CONFIG_ARCH_BCMRING is not set
# CONFIG_BT_HCIBCM203X is not set
# CONFIG_BCM4329_RFKILL is not set
CONFIG_BCM4330_RFKILL=y
# CONFIG_BCM4329 is not set
CONFIG_BCMDHD=y
CONFIG_BCMDHD_FW_PATH="/system/vendor/firmware/fw_bcmdhd.bin"
CONFIG_BCMDHD_NVRAM_PATH="/system/etc/nvram.txt"
CONFIG_BCMA_POSSIBLE=y
# CONFIG_BCMA is not set
# CONFIG_BCM_WIMAX is not set
Note those paths in /system. I mention this because the recovery generally mounts the (flash memory) system partition right on top of /system in order to restore files during a ROM installation - which covers up any file contents stored below that mount point in the ramdisk during the time that the mount is active (file restore operations being performed into flash memory).
Same thing wpa_supplicant. Among other things, it wants to read things out of /data/misc/wifi/ e.g. wpa_supplicant.conf
Mount /data and that stuff gets covered up as well.
It might turn out that all that stuff only needs to to be read once; so I suppose if you could get the wlan0 interface configured to a pre-defined AP SSID (with no encryption and no authentication!), maybe that's only a minor issue.
Probably rather than kanging files this way and that, the right way to approach this is to clone the TWRP git repository, and modify paths and the build tree to have firmware and wpa_supplicant support infrastructure not live in either /system or /data - that way you could mount whatever you want at /data and /system without bolluxing up WiFi state management.
Or, mod the /sbin/recovery and "updater-binary" code to mount the system and data partitions at temporary mount points (instead of /system and /data) for the purpose of unpacking the ROM archives into their destination filesystems. Then any supporting firmware/configuration files for WiFi support could be done out of the ramdisk, and would not run the risk of being "covered by mounts".
Well, cheers. I'm not sure I should carry the ball on this any further, unless you have some coffee money on you.
It is tangentially related to understanding how to get Ad-hoc WiFi working, and I would like to see that though.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Good luck

Related

developing for the DSTL1 / N21

I want to try developing for the DSTL1 / N21
There are quite a few interesting things we can do...
Success has been been seen by xda-devs such as JesusFreke, Amon_RA, Haykuro, and Cyanogen (yes there others) in the field of Android ROMs. The ground work is there, porting and developing can commence.
Why do this?
Current ROM 1.5 - has many problems...
Unofficial ROM 1.6 - is a GREAT improvement, but makes one hungry for something better...
It would be awesome to have some success in this field. I know this device is capable of so much more, but I believe the implementation of the system is the issue. This is not the phone developers fault, as they have their own company agenda, but we could improve our own performance and satisfaction .
For example, my device (1.6 rooted) lags with having only ~50% CPU utilization and ~50MB RAM free...
Overclocking (i mean forcing full CPU capacity - 624Mhz) the CPU has barely helped and only aided battery drain...
Relevant comparison of G1 vs DSTL1 (N21) are
RAM - G1: 192MB vs DSTL1: 128MB
CPU - G1: 528Mhz vs DSTL1: 624Mhz
These specification comparisons say that G1 can run a better ROM than DSTL1? I don't think so. DSTL1 only loses in RAM, which can be made up for using swap!
Devs had success with techniques using: App2SD, swap, ext3, and BFS (faster file system). I believe we could do something impressive here! There are pros and cons to this.
Developers and Testers would be needed. A team of 5 developers and a few testers should be able to get us on the right track. We would definitely need Linux experience, or the desire and ability to soak up all the info on Google
A Linux kernel is a must for this phone, we would have to compile our own... It would be nice to preserve DUAL SIM, but in reality we might have to give up this luxury, as it is proprietary code, unless a new ROM is made backwards compatible (which is possible).
Cyanogen's Github is available for knowledge osmosis http://github.com/cyanogen
A DSTL1 Recovery by Amon_RA (based on Cyanogen's Recovery) is already in Beta...
Cool things are possible. Could I find some developers willing to donate their free time?
Please limit responses to dev talk.
reserved for later
crzyruski,
Believe it or not the very luxury you talk about giving up(dual sim) is the reason why may of us bother to buy these phones(DSTL1\N21) in the first place. Other wise we might as well go with a mainstream phone such as hero etc.
chrismotto said:
crzyruski,
Believe it or not the very luxury you talk about giving up(dual sim) is the reason why may of us bother to buy these phones(DSTL1\N21) in the first place. Other wise we might as well go with a mainstream phone such as hero etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its a possibility that I'm not going to ignore, so I stated it.
The point is that the current OS is lacking. Initially we would want to port and learn from porting of the quality ROMs available now. Those obviously don't support dual-SIM.
Progress needs to start from somewhere. When someone releases a new port or ROM not all pieces work... look at the Eclair (2.0) port, half the features don't work!
If enough heads came together we could probably retain dual-SIM, common this is linux and I've seen the most amazing development come to realization. I just need the teamwork because it might take me a whole year in my spare time...
Having a kernel working
Hi,
the most important IMHO is having a kernel working, built from sources.
Obviously, some closed source drivers must be rewritten, notably the NXP5209 (the GSM modem), if we want the device to be useful (i.e. if we want to make phone call).
My first attempt of booting with a custom kernel was unsucessfull (black screen), which brings to the second point: the lack of some sort of console for kernel debuging.
Any idea regarding the NXP? Anyone is aware of some opensource driver or specs?
Any idea also regarding kernel debugging in the N21/DSTL1?
sfabris
@sfabris
I will try to find info for the questions you have.
My initial work will be to make an emulator so we can test on PC and not our devices (because we need them functional for every day life )
Have you checked out how other modders have done kernel modifications?
Namely JF and Cyanogen?
I can't begin to comprehend so I'm glad you took the initiative with this.
Lets make some progress
sfabris said:
Obviously, some closed source drivers must be rewritten, notably the NXP5209 (the GSM modem), if we want the device to be useful (i.e. if we want to make phone call).
Any idea regarding the NXP? Anyone is aware of some opensource driver or specs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe we have it all wrong???? Maybe its PNX?
PDA DB reports DSTL1 as having Nexperia PNX5209 (ARM946) Phone Controller.
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=1714&view=1&c=general_mobile_dstl1
A similar Android with this phone controller is WayteQ X-Phone (TechFaith Lancer)
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=1801&view=1&c=wayteq_x-phone_android_techfaith_lancer
crzyruski said:
@sfabris
Have you checked out how other modders have done kernel modifications?
Namely JF and Cyanogen?
I can't begin to comprehend so I'm glad you took the initiative with this.
Lets make some progress
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I'm forced to HTC G1 until I'll wait the replacement for my N21 I'll go in detail on the kernel boot process on other hardware.
A fast way to test kernel in our every day device is kexec which should work also on ARM.
sfabris said:
A fast way to test kernel in our every day device is kexec which should work also on ARM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I understand, kexec is a program that can run a new kernel on the fly...
So I could try a new kernel right from my device without reflashing?
have you tried this? Or is this still theory?
crzyruski said:
As far as I understand, kexec is a program that can run a new kernel on the fly...
So I could try a new kernel right from my device without reflashing?
have you tried this? Or is this still theory?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried it on x86, never on arm.
Support is there also for arm, but this not imply that also the Marvell PXA is supported.
It's basically the same way of booting Android from WM via haret.
Fastest way to boot your new kernel or to crash your machine
I have created an emulator.
FYI, LCD density should be 120.
Edit: Technically the density is 133...
files prevent recovery-RA-DSTL1-v1.2.3 from loading
I have been wrestling with the beta recovery-RA-DSTL1-v1.2.3
Amon_RA retrofitted his own recovery image to work for the DSTL1 (N21)...
IT HAS AWESOME POTENTIAL.
Currently ADB RECOVERY SHELL + ROOT is the only thing that is functional.
But I haven't been able to get in touch with him to continue work on it.
The following files prevent me from booting into RA's Recovery, so I remove them:
- e2fsck
- mke2fs
- parted
- tune2fs
Once I am in ADB RECOVERY SHELL I can push them back on and do what I need to do.
Unfortunately the changes are persistent so if I were to reboot and try Recovery Mode again, it won't load
What is so special about those four programs that prevent my recovery from loading?????
is there any ways to update the firmware of N21
hi,
i'm just buy a sciphone n21 (actually is already in our office for 2 weeks but find it now:-( )
and i've to face myself in a situation that i can't use this phone:-( since i buy this phone because:
- i assume that google apps auto sync contact and calendars. unfortunately this phone has not google apps by default.
- and has dual sim support.
so my question: is there any way to upgrade it to a firmware which support is?
can i do anything to use my phone?
thanks in advance.
regards.
crzyruski said:
I have been wrestling with the beta recovery-RA-DSTL1-v1.2.3
Amon_RA retrofitted his own recovery image to work for the DSTL1 (N21)...
IT HAS AWESOME POTENTIAL.
Currently ADB RECOVERY SHELL + ROOT is the only thing that is functional.
But I haven't been able to get in touch with him to continue work on it.
The following files prevent me from booting into RA's Recovery, so I remove them:
- e2fsck
- mke2fs
- parted
- tune2fs
Once I am in ADB RECOVERY SHELL I can push them back on and do what I need to do.
Unfortunately the changes are persistent so if I were to reboot and try Recovery Mode again, it won't load
What is so special about those four programs that prevent my recovery from loading?????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
e2fsck is a filesystem check utility for ext2
mke2fs is for ext2 filesystem creation
parted is a partitioning tool
tune2fs is for change some filesystem parameters (usually checking interval)
I've read that recovery from Amon-Ra creates automatically 3 partitions (ext2, swap and FAT32). So those commands whould probably mean ext2 filesystem creation. I'm sure Amon-Ra could give us more information on this subject because he added them to the image.
Have you checked your SD card?.
PD: I'm waiting for my N21 . So I can't test yet.
andferno said:
e2fsck is a filesystem check utility for ext2
mke2fs is for ext2 filesystem creation
parted is a partitioning tool
tune2fs is for change some filesystem parameters (usually checking interval)
I've read that recovery from Amon-Ra creates automatically 3 partitions (ext2, swap and FAT32). So those commands whould probably mean ext2 filesystem creation. I'm sure Amon-Ra could give us more information on this subject because he added them to the image.
Have you checked your SD card?.
PD: I'm waiting for my N21 . So I can't test yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for that insight.
I am not sure what RA's recovery would have done on its own...
but I have initiated and completed successfully a partition of my SDCard that includes FAT32, swap, and ext2.
Now that I have done this, for experimentation really, I don't know how to use it and what it gives me.
Obviously the swap is useless because I would need a cooked Android ROM that would actually utilize swap.
ext2 is probably for apps2sd... which I tried unsuccessfully - probably because of my own mistake.
I will continue trying and report again later.
As far as Amon_RA, he mentioned he was working on upgrading all the recovery images he has put out to the next version - thus we will be in queue until this comes to pass. Maybe we can just skip this version and go to the next
N21 vs DSTL1: stock comparisons
I have completed the comparison of recovery images of the DSTL1 and N21.
For this test I used an original mtd2.img from my DSTL1 and an original mtd2.img from Slemmen's N21.
The recovery images are identical:
Both mt2.img are 4,194,304 bytes
Both mtd2.img-kernel are 2,141,616 bytes
Both mtd2.img-ramdisk.gz are 386,645 bytes
What is also interesting to note is that the two boot images i inspected were also identical.
The DSTL1 boot image is one that came with the 1502 update from General Mobile (which may or may not be identical to the original).
The original N21 boot image, thanks to ikarishinjisan, is identical to the DSTL1 boot image:
Both mt1.img are 4,194,304 bytes
Both mtd1.img-kernel are 2,141,816 bytes
Both mtd1.img-ramdisk.gz are 148,671 bytes
*Notice how both recovery and boot are the same size... must be padded?
*Notice how boot kernel is 200 bytes more than recovery kernel.... interesting...
On a side note:
Bootloader is identical as expected: both ikarishinjisan's and my mtd0.img are 1,048,576 bytes.
If things are going to go custom, it might make some sense to put ext3 filesystems on these things.. ext3 is just ext2 with journalling, which could be helpful since phones can just die/get dropped/lose connection with battery/whatever.
Also, this can be done with the tools already there..
mkfs.ext2
tune2fs -j
dnfm said:
Also, this can be done with the tools already there..
mkfs.ext2
tune2fs -j
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you referring to the Amon_RA's custom recovery?
I can't get tune2fs onto the recovery without trickery, definitely not noob friendly... until we figure out why.
But great suggestion
I'm guessing the ROM must be coded to make use of ext3, otherwise its worthless?
The kernel would need to be configured to support ext3.

[FIX]Enable encryption - Check&Shrink ext4 filesystem

If you ever used CWM, CWMT or other non factory recoveries to wipe your data, you probably noticed that you lost the ability to encrypt your phone. Or maybe you did not even realize this is why encryption does not work.
For the Android phone encryption to work, it needs the /data (usrdata) partition to have a little bit of unused space between the end of the filesystem and the end of the partition. And as soon as you use CWM to wipe, it actually reformats using all space, and encryption does not work anymore.
User lolo250612 brought this to my attention, and together we created a update.zip that shrinks the /data filesystem by 1MB
In fact, we created 2 patches: One to shrink, and one to first repair the filesystem. The first will refuse to shrink if the file system is not clean and healthy. They will automatically find the correct usrdata partition device and its size. The shrink will then resize to 1MB less then the partition size (which means it could also be used to grow if you somehow had a filesystem a lot smaller, for example because you restored an smaller image from somewhere).
Both patches are created with statically linked e2fsprogs binaries and its own static copy of busybox shell interpreter. So they should work on all Android devices that use ext file system (probably all V2.3.1 Gingerbread and higher androids), and you should not lose any data because of this. But it is always good to make a backup.
We tested this on 2 phones, both ICS phones, and with both CWM and TWRP type recoveries, and are fairly certain it is safe to use. But to repeat, you should always take a backup of your phone.
Both patches can be found on my shared drive:
ICS_usrdata_fix-fs.zip
ICS_usrdata_shrink.zip
Procedure:
- Make backup of your phone
- Place files on SD card
- Boot into recovery
- Apply the shrink update
- If it tells you the filesystem is damaged apply the fix-fs update first
The patch only shrinks the filesystem, nothing is actually installed or removed on the phone. But if you use encryption, you could leave this patch on your SD card so that every time you wipe data, you can run the shrink patch again afterward to enable encryption again.
If you do use this, please report back in this thread, possibly mentioning your phone model and ROM you are using.
Quick encryption guide (and more)
I won't go deep into useless details as everything has already been described about Android phone protection somewhere on the internet. I will just give some meaningful links and tips by illustrating how I have protected my phone. Really nothing new or innovative, just a compilation of a few hints that I have put in practice to protect the numerous pieces of information that are on my phone.
Step 0: awareness
----------------------------
Why bother with phone security?
In short, I am clearly paranoid. Well, in fact, I don’t really feel at ease when I know all the information, both personal and professional I have on my phone. Over the month, my Androphone has become a real digital Swiss-knife and personal secretary. This includes:
Personal and professional contacts
Personal and professional agendas
Personal and professional digital exchanges (SMS and email)
Personal and professional photos
Banking account information
Trails where I run
Etc… etc…
Don't want someone looks at them. Not you?
Fist step: on-line protection
----------------------------------------
The first step in protecting your data consists in making hard to access indirectly the data that lay on your phone memory. This access consists in using the system when the phone is on, either via the GUI and the phone controls, or remotely (essentially by network connections, or phone basic functionalities like sms). So, basically, you need to lock efficiently your phone from preventing someone else to unlock the user interface that allows interactions with the system, and protect all communication channels.
To lock efficiently your phone, you must use a pin code of at least 4 digits (6 is better) or a pass-phrase. The latter is much less practical without improving online security that much. Above all, you must avoid those silly locking solutions like face recognition unlocking, or pattern lock. Those are toys for naive young boys. Not for those concerned seriously by security.
For protecting remote access to your phone, I would suggest:
1) Double check that USB debugging is disabled. This a major security hole.
2) Turn on data connections (bluetooth, wifi and 2/G/3G/4G) only when required (email checking, web-surfing session, data synchronising), and off rest of the time.
3) Avoid install cracked unofficial apks, or applications that asks for permission far beyond their obvious and principal utility
4) Install a software security app, if possible, open source and recognised by xda members. Once an adept of Droiwall, I have switched to Avast mobile security because of its extra features. But it is not opensource and it is a question of taste. But do this carefully, see that for instance before making a choice: http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-57391170-12/dont-get-faked-by-android-antivirus-apps/ and http://www.av-test.org/fileadmin/pdf/avtest_2012-02_android_anti-malware_report_english.pdf.
But, you must be rooted (which is in itself a security hole if not mastered) and one must have a kernel with netfilter functionalities activated. This is the case with the stock kernel of the phone I use at the present time (Lenovo A789). But was not the case of 2 Samsung phones I used before. You have to either install a custom kernel adapted to your phone, or make your own if you have access to its sources (see tutorials as: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=22941057&postcount=1)
5) Personally, I would feel more at ease if I could find an easy to use firewall solution that could close, and better, make stealth all the local ports of my phone, especially when I am not behind a wifi router. But I haven’t found one yet. Droidwall, nor Avast, addresses this functionality, whereas it would be fairly easy to implement it with the netfilter system layer underneath.
Second step: offline protection
-------------------------------------------
Here we are. Now your phone is protected when it is on. But, what if you switch it off, or remove its sdcard? The data lay on the internal memory, unprotected (at best obfuscated). Really easy to find a custom recovery for almost all phones, write a script to dump /data on a sdcard and then make whatever you want with the copy.
Don’t like that? The only solution to prevent /data from being read by someone else is to encrypt the /data partition. To do that, your phone or tablet internal storage partitions must be seen by your system as block devices. This is the case with eMMC but not with Yaffs. So beware, if you want encryption you need to buy a device that answers this requirement. This is not always true and almost never documented. Notes on the implementation of Android encryption are there: http://source.android.com/tech/encryption/android_crypto_implementation.html
Now, as me, if you are reading these lines, you are certainly looking for extra information about your Android device and probably extra functionalities.
Certainly, the most frequent way to install extra functionalities and custom ROMs to your phone is to use an update zip file. With stock recovery, this zip file needs to be signed, otherwise it is rejected. For maximum flexibility and ease of use, alternative boot recovery have been developed, of which CWRP is certainly the most famous.
Usually, for 99% of users and operations, CWRP operates great. Sometimes, as nothing is perfect, a bug may occur. This is the case for built in ICS encryption process. As Cybermaus indicates in the first post, to be able to perform this encryption the /data filesystem must be slightly smaller than the underlying partition. But CWRP, at least up to the version 5.5, formats all the corresponding partition leaving no place for Android to store the required information to be able to start the encryption process. This is clearly described in the following links: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1792101 and http://rootzwiki.com/topic/25652-fixing-galaxy-tab-2-encryption/
I have discovered that by using aLogcat to track down the origin of the failure. The interesting part revealed to be: E/Cryptfs ( 87): Orig filesystem overlaps crypto footer region. Cannot encrypt in place.
To circumvent this problem, you will find in Cybermaus first post, two CWM update zip files that will do the trick in a simple and secure way. After flashing your ROM and wiping data with CWM, apply them, go to system encryption as described here:http://support.google.com/android/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1663755, and after waiting one or two minutes (not more), the system should restart automagically to encrypt your /data partition.
Third step: making your phone even more secure and practical at the same time
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Android built-in encryption is in fact more or less Linux LUKS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Unified_Key_Setup). Plus, it is open-source so that everyone with the required skills can make an audit of the code to see if no security hole is present in the Android implementation. The underlying mechanism is strong and secure, as long as you use a strong password. I mean by strong, at least 12 characters that includes at the same time lower-case letters, upper-case letters, numbers and symbols. And it must be something impossible to guess for others while easy to remember for yourself. You will find a lot of resources on the internet on how to create such a password. For instance: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/StrongPasswords .
The problem with Android, in its attempt to keep the system not too complicated to use, is that the GUI (I insist: only the GUI, not the system) does not distinguish between the PIN or passphrase that you use to lock your phone when it is on, and the password used to encrypt the data that lay physically on your phone storage. So the casual user is in front of a paradigm: either he chooses a strong password for its data, but this will rapidly become tedious to type at least 12 characters to unlock his device several times a day; or he decides to use a PIN code, which is more practical to unlock the phone, and consequently uses a really weak password to encrypt its data which contains only digits, and thus may be cracked in a breath by any PC.
Fortunately, this paradigm is addressed and solved by small tools like EncPassChanger or Cryptfs Password (both requiring that your phone be rooted, which is by the way, paradoxically, a security hole if not used with caution ). See: http://nelenkov.blogspot.fr/2012/08/changing-androids-disk-encryption.html for complete notes about that. So for me, the only way, both secure and practical, to secure your phone is by using a PIN code of at least 4 numbers (6 is better). Then use a handy tool like EncPassChanger to have a true complex password for decryption at boot time.
Fourth step: increase security, without sacrifying practicability
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I am paranoid, but at the same time don’t want my phone to become a source of annoyances, the previous “basic” steps were not enough for me.
So I decided to improve security in two ways:
1) By following the following tip, which I find great and is itself self-explaining: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=26730989&postcount=2
2) By encrypting the photos I take with my phone, because these are linked with my private life and I won’t like that somebody gain access to them.
3) By encrypting documents I scan with CamScanner, for home and work, which may be sensitive.
4) By automating the action that disables USB debugging in case I forget to put it off after using it .
For point 2 and 3, documents lay on your sd card uncrypted. Android built-in encryption does not deal with both internal and external sdcard (just to be clear, by sdcards I mean partitions mounted as /mnt/scard or /mnt/scard2). To encrypt them you have to use once again an external tool. As I am an opensource fanatic for all that deal with security, I would recommend to use LUKS Manager (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nemesis2.luksmanager&feature=search_result and http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1141467) which is based on dm-crypt module (yes, the same that Android uses for its build-in encryption), or Cryptonite (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=csh.cryptonite&feature=search_result) which is completely open-source and implements the rock-solid Linux encfs on Android.
The latter is my personal choice. I do not use Crytonite in itself, except for creating the initial .encfs6.xml file. For everyday use, I use directly the Android port of the binary file encfs that comes with Cryptonite, and embed it into shell scripts. Up to now, no flaw, no problem. The password to open my encfs encrypted volumes is stored in a text file located on the /data partition. It is thus encrypted by Android and made accessible on boot when you decrypt this partition. So nothing more to remember.
To make things usable and practical, I use Tasker to automate the following things:
- Mount encfs volumes on start-up, by reading directly the password in the file located on /data
- Umount encfs volumes when usb is plugged
- Copy photos on a regular basis from the unencrypted /mnt/sdcard/DCIM to the safe place I created with encfs, delete AND wipe the original ones
Fifth step: be coherent about security
-----------------------------------------------------
Some people, torn apart by the paradigm described in Third step, by negligence or by lack of knowledge, strongly secure one part of the system, but make other parts big security holes.
Concretely, I am thinking about two examples: mixing encryption with pattern lock (or, even worse, with face unlock), or mixing encryption with usb debugging. Face recognition is just a jock. It is not reliable and fails very often. Moreover it is really easy to crack, with a photo for example. One of my colleague even achieved to unlock my phone with its own face, just because we are morphologically close enough. Pattern lock is not much better. (See: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=37649447&postcount=6 and https://www.google.fr/search?q=smudge+attack).
So always ponder over (two times rather than one) each action you take that may touch system security.
Thanks lolo
I'm trying to use this on my VZW Galaxy S3 16Gb and this is what I'm seeing in TWRP v2.2.0:
Mounting System
Extracting system fixes
Update script starting...
Update script started
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0p15: 13.1GB, 13140754432
4 heads, 10 sectors/track, 401024 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 64 * 512 = 32768 bytes
ERROR: unlikely size of KB
aborting operation!
Update script ended
Unmounting system...
Update Complete
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
edit: The same thing happens with both scripts.
I need to enable device encryption because my employer requires it for email and other Google Apps for Business apps. Thank you for your help!
Anyone know why full disk encryption isn't available on some (if not most roms)? Is it something that needs to be added with intent aside in the building process, or dependent on how the stock rom was set-up to work with?
I was hoping this would help get encryption working on an EVO ics rom which has encryption available, but when you click "encrypt phone" it just hangs on an android screen and doesn't actually do anything.
i was really happy to find your solution to enable encryption on my HTC desire S (ICS, rooted), but unfotunately it doesn't work. the same thing happen to me as it happened to mushu13, only different numbers in lines 5 and 6. same result whichever script i choose. please help, i really need system encryption.
thanky you very much!
First thing you should know, I am not an Android Guru. And unfortunately, if your phone is not an A789, I won't be able to help you deep in technical details. Cybermaus is the most skilled of the two of us, technically speaking, and he may lack time to answer correctly every request he is regurlarly faced with.
Okay, I do not know your phones and don't own them. So, distant debugging is much harder in these conditions. But the first things you should check, before applying Cybermaus' patches, are :
1) if encryption works with stock rom
2) follow thoroughly all steps I described in "Second step: offline protection" of the second post of this thread :
- your phone or tablet internal storage partitions must be seen by your system as block devices. This is the case with eMMC but not with Yaffs. If you don't have this information from the manufacturer, install Terminal Emulator from the Play Store and type 'mount' in it. You should see lines beginning with /[email protected] and /[email protected] If this is not the case, I fear encryption won't be able to work on your device.
- use aLogcat to track down the origin of the failure (see resources on the internet to learn how to use it, and links I have put in the second post)
3) Be sure that required modules are built into the kernel you use, especially dm-crypt
4) Post your results and cross your fingers that either this is a problem I have already encountered (in this case I may help you further), or Cybermaus see your posts.
While this script did allow me to encrypt my phone, it also shrunk my /data partition to roughly 1.1 GB.
Any ideas on how to expand it back to a reasonable size? I supposedly have 4 GB of ROM, and I assume more than 1 GB ought to be available for data.
Sent from my HTC Sensation using xda app-developers app
Thank you for your nice guide.
Only one thing is missing: baseband security.
Attacks on the baseband system requires very skilled people. Such as government agencies. It is believed they use baseband attacks to break into almost every mobile device. And there is only little you can do. Some vendors like Cryptophone have mobile devices with a hardened Android system. All others have no way to protect their device against baseband attacks.
Is this patch and reasoning still valid for newer android releases.
I am running a custom kitkat rom and twrp on a note 3 and can't encrypt so im looking for a fix.
I have been looking around for fixes but different posts blame different things.
Sometimes its the fact its a custom recovery, sometimes its that root is on the device and then there is this reasoning
Is there a way to find out the cause and fix for kitkat?
Virus
Hi, i tried to download your files
ICS_usrdata_fix-fs.zip
ICS_usrdata_shrink.zip
But the file are exe files with viruses.
Any ideas?
u2funker said:
Hi, i tried to download your files
ICS_usrdata_fix-fs.zip
ICS_usrdata_shrink.zip
But the file are exe files with viruses.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe false alarm.
Lossyx said:
Maybe false alarm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no, but if you search for these file, you will find some which work and which are without viruses. Check the link..it is not an zip file..it is an exe file
@cybermaus: just tried flashing the two *.zips on my Galaxy S 4 Mini running CM 12 (Android Lollipop) because my logcat tells me I'm getting the described cryptfs error. It seems my /data partition doesn't have that 1 MB of unused space needed for encryption. Now I would love to encrypt my phone using CM's integrated function without having to completely format the internal storage (because that's the other workaround I found: flash stock rom, wipe data (factory reset), flash Custom Recovery, flash CM again)
Do you have the time and device to update your script so it works with Android Lollipop as well? I see a lot of people come across this issue recently so there would be definetly use for such a nice script like yours!
Thanks for sharing this with us!
-Teutone
no available for download any mirror ?
Or write the script on the thread.
Thanks
Can you post the scripts? links are dead!
---------- Post added at 16:33 ---------- Previous post was at 16:32 ----------
cybermaus said:
If you ever used CWM, CWMT or other non factory recoveries to wipe your data, you probably noticed that you lost the ability to encrypt your phone. Or maybe you did not even realize this is why encryption does not work.
For the Android phone encryption to work, it needs the /data (usrdata) partition to have a little bit of unused space between the end of the filesystem and the end of the partition. And as soon as you use CWM to wipe, it actually reformats using all space, and encryption does not work anymore.
User lolo250612 brought this to my attention, and together we created a update.zip that shrinks the /data filesystem by 1MB
In fact, we created 2 patches: One to shrink, and one to first repair the filesystem. The first will refuse to shrink if the file system is not clean and healthy. They will automatically find the correct usrdata partition device and its size. The shrink will then resize to 1MB less then the partition size (which means it could also be used to grow if you somehow had a filesystem a lot smaller, for example because you restored an smaller image from somewhere).
Both patches are created with statically linked e2fsprogs binaries and its own static copy of busybox shell interpreter. So they should work on all Android devices that use ext file system (probably all V2.3.1 Gingerbread and higher androids), and you should not lose any data because of this. But it is always good to make a backup.
We tested this on 2 phones, both ICS phones, and with both CWM and TWRP type recoveries, and are fairly certain it is safe to use. But to repeat, you should always take a backup of your phone.
Both patches can be found on my shared drive:
ICS_usrdata_fix-fs.zip
ICS_usrdata_shrink.zip
Procedure:
- Make backup of your phone
- Place files on SD card
- Boot into recovery
- Apply the shrink update
- If it tells you the filesystem is damaged apply the fix-fs update first
The patch only shrinks the filesystem, nothing is actually installed or removed on the phone. But if you use encryption, you could leave this patch on your SD card so that every time you wipe data, you can run the shrink patch again afterward to enable encryption again.
If you do use this, please report back in this thread, possibly mentioning your phone model and ROM you are using.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
links are dead. Can you post the scripts?

[UPDATED][INFO] ROM 101 + CWM Errors Solutions

Parts of a ROM
i. The kernel.
Android (like many other Smartphone operating systems) runs on the Linux kernel. The Linux kernel was created in the early 1990’s by a gentleman named Linus Torvalds in Helsinki, Finland. It’s incredibly stable, incredibly friendly, and incredibly difficult for the layman to understand and modify. Thankfully it’s also very popular so it has been ported on to a multitude of hardware, including our Android devices.
Think of the kernel as an interface layer between the hardware and software on your device. The kernel decides when things happen, such as the LED indicator gets lit or when the soft button's LED gets lit. An application sends a request to the operating system to blink the LED. The operating system then sends the request to the kernel, which makes the light flash for the amount of time requested by the OS.
What sounds like a round-about way to get things done is also what makes the system so scalable and robust. Application developers only have to code in a way the operating system understands and the kernel makes it work on the hardware. This also keeps the application running in it’s own user-space and separate from the kernel. That means when you run the latest uber-cool app that wasn’t designed for your particular OS version, or is still very beta and it crashes, the kernel gives you the option to Force Close the application and the kernel can run untouched.
In a standard Android ROM (we will leave developer images and the like for another discussion) the kernel is bundled along with a set of instructions that tell the device how to load the kernel and the OS during boot. This is the boot.img that you see inside a zipped ROM that your not able to easily open. The device knows to extract this image to internal memory (the ramdisk) and follow a series of scripts (init scripts) to load the kernel and then the other portions of the OS. That’s what’s happening while you’re watching the boot animation. Interestingly enough this is done the same way for a PC, your smartphone, an Android tablet, or even a smart Linux powered toaster. If you’re feeling exceptionally geeky, plug your Android phone into the USB port on your PC and let the PC boot from the USB device. No, it doesn’t actually load, but you can watch the animation while it tries to match up the hardware support with what’s inside your PC. As I said, Linux is amazingly scalable and as a result so is Android.
What is a kernel? If you spend any time reading Android forums, blogs, how-to posts or online discussion you'll soon hear people talking about the kernel. A kernel isn't something unique to Android -- iOS and MacOS have one, Windows has one, BlackBerry's QNX has one, in fact all high level operating systems have one. The one we're interested in is Linux, as it's the one Android uses. Let's try to break down what it is and what it does.
Android devices use the Linux kernel, but it's not the exact same kernel other Linux-based operating systems use. There's a lot of Android specific code built in, and Google's Android kernel maintainers have their work cut out for them. OEMs have to contribute as well, because they need to develop hardware drivers for the parts they're using for the kernel version they're using. This is why it takes a while for independent Android developers and hackers to port new versions to older devices and get everything working. Drivers written to work with the Gingerbread kernel on a phone won't necessarily work with the Ice Cream Sandwich kernel. And that's important, because one of the kernel's main functions is to control the hardware. It's a whole lot of source code, with more options while building it than you can imagine, but in the end it's just the intermediary between the hardware and the software.
When software needs the hardware to do anything, it sends a request to the kernel. And when we say anything, we mean anything. From the brightness of the screen, to the volume level, to initiating a call through the radio, even what's drawn on the display is ultimately controlled by the kernel. For example -- when you tap the search button on your phone, you tell the software to open the search application. What happens is that you touched a certain point on the digitizer, which tells the software that you've touched the screen at those coordinates. The software knows that when that particular spot is touched, the search dialog is supposed to open. The kernel is what tells the digitizer to look (or listen, events are "listened" for) for touches, helps figure out where you touched, and tells the system you touched it. In turn, when the system receives a touch event at a specific point from the kernel (through the driver) it knows what to draw on your screen. Both the hardware and the software communicate both ways with the kernel, and that's how your phone knows when to do something. Input from one side is sent as output to the other, whether it's you playing Angry Birds, or connecting to your car's Bluetooth.
It sounds complicated, and it is. But it's also pretty standard computer logic -- there's an action of some sort generated for every event. Without the kernel to accept and send information, developers would have to write code for every single event for every single piece of hardware in your device. With the kernel, all they have to do is communicate with it through the Android system API's, and hardware developers only have to make the device hardware communicate with the kernel. The good thing is that you don't need to know exactly how or why the kernel does what it does, just understanding that it's the go-between from software to hardware gives you a pretty good grasp of what's happening under the glass. Sort of gives a whole new outlook towards those fellows who stay up all night to work on kernels for your phone, doesn't it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ii. The operating system.
Once the kernel is loaded, the init scripts tell the Operating System to load. Android is the user interface for a custom built Java virtual machine called Dalvik. Dalvik was written by Dan Bornstein, who named it after the fishing village of Dalvik in Iceland, where his family originated from. The debate of which Java VM is superior is best left for another discussion, so I’ll simply say that DalvikVM is a register-based machine versus true JavaVMs which are stack based.
The Dalvik machine creates executable files (.dex files) which can be interpreted by the OS and run by the end user. These .dex files are OS version dependant. That simply means that applications and core functions built to work with one version of Android may or may not work well with other versions. Google provides the tools through it’s Software Development Kit (SDK) for applications to communicate with the OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iii. Core functions.
No smartphone would be complete without a set of functions that allow the device to be used as intended. Things like the phone and dialer interface, the calendar, the messaging system are core functions of the Operating System. In Android, these are run on top of the kernel as separate applications. The merits (or lack of) of providing these needed functions as separate applications is once again best left for another discussion, but this is what allows developers like HTC or Motorola to replace the standard functions with alternatives that provide a different look and feel from stock. HTC’s onscreen keyboard or Motorola’s MotoBlur contact list are great examples of this. The “little guy” isn’t left out of the mix either. Handcent SMS or Chomp SMS can integrate into the OS very well, as most of us already know.
An additional set of Core Functions are provided by Google. Popularly called GoogleBits, things like Gmail, sync, Gtalk and the Android Market are applications written by Google that give an extra set of useful functions to the OS. You’ll find these on all smartphones, as well as many other Android devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iv. Optional applications.
These are applications provided by the manufacturer to give the device even more usability. Things like the Amazon MP3 store, PDF readers, Corporate Calendar etc. allow you to do even more with your device. Remember - Droid Does
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
B. How is a ROM packaged?
In most cases a ROM will come packaged in a .zip file. The recovery image’s kernel (yes, it has one too!) has the ability to unzip and copy the contents into the correct place. Inside this zip file is a folder (META-INF\com\google\android\) that contains a script prepared by the ROM “cooker” (another of those techie terms - it means the person(s) who developed the ROM) that tells the system what to format, what to copy and where, and any file operations that need to be done. Each device does things a bit differently, but this script is where it all gets done. More on this folder later.
You’ll also see a /system folder. This is the meat of the ROM. It has the necessary OS files, the Core functions, and any optional applications the cooker decided to include. The folder is structured the same way it is on your device - /system/app, /system/framework, etc. The whole tree is usually copied over and the existing /system folder is overwritten. The cooker uses the script to tell the kernel to erase the existing system folder, copy the new folder over, and set the file permissions.
Sometimes you will also see a data folder. This usually is space set up for optional applications, including optional system tools like busybox or SuperUser white list. These applications could be placed in the /system folder, but placing them in the data folder makes it easier for the end user (you and I) to remove or update them as needed.
You’ll also notice a META-INF folder. This contains the update script we talked about earlier, as well as secure keys that need to be provided so the device knows the update can be trusted. A special note needs made here. Trusted means that the update is trusted to be in the correct form to load the device. It in no way means the ROM is safe from malicious code. Anyone is able to use a set of test keys and create a ROM that will flash and run your device - even those people with bad intentions. Flashing and running a custom 3rd party ROM is putting faith in the cooker that he or she not only knows what they are doing, but are honest as well. Also, some Motorola custom ROMs will have a small update.zip stored inside this folder to be run on first boot of the device.
Finally we are left with the boot.img file. This is the kernel and ramdisk image we discussed earlier. Your phone copies this over to be decompressed and run when the device boots.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2. How do I install a ROM?
In this section we’re discussing how to install a custom 3rd party ROM. ROMs from the manufacturer usually have a utility that runs on your PC to flash and load the new image.
A. Got Root???
What is Root?
Android rooting is the process of allowing users of smartphones, tablets, and other devices running the Android mobile operating system to attain privileged control (known as "root access") within Android's subsystem.
Rooting is often performed with the goal of overcoming limitations that carriers and hardware manufacturers put on some devices, resulting in the ability to alter or replace system applications and settings, run specialized apps that require administrator-level permissions, or perform other operations that are otherwise inaccessible to a normal Android user. On Android, rooting can also facilitate the complete removal and replacement of the device's operating system, usually with a more recent release of its current operating system.
As Android derives from the Linux kernel, rooting an Android device is similar to accessing administrative permissions on Linux or any other Unix-like operating system such as FreeBSD or OS X.
The process of rooting varies widely by device, but usually includes exploiting a security bug(s) in the firmware (i.e. in Android) of the device, and then copying the su binary to a location in the current process's PATH (e.g. /system/xbin/su) and granting it executable permissions with the chmod command. A supervisor application like SuperUser or SuperSU can regulate and log elevated permission requests from other applications. Many guides, tutorials, and automatic processes exist for popular Android devices facilitating a fast and easy rooting process.
For example, shortly after the HTC Dream was released, it was quickly discovered that anything typed using the keyboard was being interpreted as a command in a privileged (root) shell. Although Google quickly released a patch to fix this, a signed image of the old firmware leaked, which gave users the ability to downgrade and use the original exploit to gain root access. Once an exploit is discovered, a custom recovery image that skips the digital signature check of a firmware update package can be flashed. In turn, using the custom recovery, a modified firmware update can be installed that typically includes the utilities (for example the Superuser app) needed to run apps as root.
The Google-branded Android phones, the Nexus One, Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4, as well as their tablet counterparts, the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10, can be boot-loader unlocked by simply connecting the device to a computer while in boot-loader mode and running the Fastboot program with the command "fastboot oem unlock".[9] After accepting a warning, the boot-loader is unlocked, so a new system image can be written directly to flash without the need for an exploit.
Recently, Motorola, LG Electronics and HTC added security features to their devices at the hardware level in an attempt to prevent users from rooting retail Android devices.[citation needed] For instance, the Motorola Droid X has a security boot-loader that puts the phone in "recovery mode" if a user loads unsigned firmware onto the device, and the Samsung Galaxy S II displays a yellow triangle indicator if the device firmware has been modified.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes ?:good:!!!
Custom ROM’s simply will not load on devices that aren’t rooted. In theory, it may be possible to sign a 3rd party ROM with the keys that the stock recovery image will flash, but for the most part you need to have flashed a custom recovery image before you can change your device’s ROM. Instructions and tutorials on how to root your device are all over the internet. Some are good, some are bad. The hacking forum is a great place to go and learn more about rooting and how to successfully get it done on your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
B. Recovery
Most Android devices have had a custom recovery image written for them. This will overwrite the stock recovery image, allowing you to flash 3rd party ROMs as well as giving extra functionality. Help with finding and flashing the custom recovery image for your device can also be found in the hacking forum. The installation of a custom recovery image also allows for a very important function. Backup and restore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.C. Nandroid
Nandroid is a set of bash scripts and code written by that copies the state of your system and stores it in a folder on your SD card. You can then use the restore function of Nandroid to restore to this point at any time. This is a priceless feature and reason enough to root your phone. It’s included by default in most custom recovery images, and the code is freely available to use if you’re inclined to write your own recovery image.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In most situations, using Nandroid to back everything up is easy:
1. Verify you have a memory card with enough free space (~300MB to backup, ~500MB to restore).
2. Reboot your device into recovery. It’s slightly different for each device, once again hacking forum FTW!
3. Navigate through the menu and select the Nandroid Backup function.
4. Apply your choice and wait for the device to tell you it’s finished.
It’s always good practice to copy the entire nandroid folder from your SD card to a safe place. You can then copy it back to the SD card if the card is ever damaged, lost or erased.
D. Copy and Flash
You’re rooted, have downloaded a custom ROM, have your system backed up and are now ready to flash your device. This is not nearly as scary as it sounds.
1. Mount your SD card to your PC, and copy the .zip file to the root folder of the card. Don’t unzip the file, and don’t look for a folder called root. The root folder in this case means the base folder, what you will see when you mount your card to a PC or the device.
2. Reboot your phone into recovery.
3. Navigate through the recovery menu and select the flash update option. Depending on your recovery image, the file may need to be named update.zip, or you may be able to select any zip file on your card as long as it’s the correct format. The cooker knows this as well and if the ROM needs to be named update.zip it will be.
4. Apply your choice and wait for your device to tell you it’s finished.
5. Reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It’s worth noting that many times a new ROM will require that you wipe and factory reset your devices data. While inconvenient, it’s often necessary to get rid of the old data as it may be incompatible. As long as you’re using the cloud for calendar and contacts, they will be re- downloaded and stored back on your device automatically.
Dirty flash and Clean flash
A dirty flash is only wiping cache and davlik then flashing your ROM....
a Clean flash is at LEAST factory reset/data wipe + wiping davlik(factory wipe takes care of /cache also)... Maybe doing a format /system also.
ERRORS encountered in CWM Recovery
.
What is CWM Recovery ?
ClockworkMod Recovery is a custom recovery for many Android devices. It is considered to be the most popular recovery for Android due to its easily-ported nature, and integration with ClockworkMod ROM Manager by Koush(Koushik Dutta). The easiest way to recognize it is by the printed name when it first starts, and the background logo of a gear and hat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ERROR STATUS 6
This is usually caused by CR/LF EOL(Windows style End Of Line) in updater-script. Change it to LF EOL(Unix Style EOL) using Linux command: dos2unix updater-script, then re-signing the ZIP, will usually fix this error.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ERROR STATUS 7
This is usually caused by a corrupt download, or bad file signature. Re-downloading (or re-signing) the ZIP will usually fix this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We have been consistently seen and heard people facing error “Status 7″ error while trying to flash or install
custom ROMs or firmware packages on their Android smart phones or tablets with ClockworkMod Recovery. Many
of the users are nowadays facing this problem with CWM Recovery while flashing .zip files of modded or custom
Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) or Jelly Bean (JB) ROMs on their devices. So, you have also downloaded a custom ROM,
placed its .zip file in your phone’s or tablet’s SD card, booted into ClockworkMod Recovery, selected – “install zip
from sdcard” and then chosen the .zip file of the ROM to get it installed on your device. But instead of getting
flashed successfully, if you are facing the issue mentioned below, then just keep reading this article to find out
what’s wrong and fix up the problem :
Finding update package…
Opening update package…
Installing update…
Error in /sdcard/custom-jelly-bean-rom.zip (Status 7)
Installation aborted
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
or the following error right after CWM recovery shows –
Installing update…
assert failed: getprop(“ro.product.device”) == “I9103″ || getprop(“ro.build.product”) == “I9103″ || getprop
(“ro.product.board”) == “I9103″
Error in /sdcard/android-4-1-1-ics-rom-latest.zip (status 7)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, if you are facing any of these errors while trying to install the desired custom ROM package on your Android
phone or tab, then you may try a various things or steps which may turn out to be the workaround of this
problem. Here are a few tips to get this “Status 7” error fixed in ClockworkMod Recovery and flash the ROM
successfully on your device :
(1) First of all, make sure your device’s bootloader is unlocked. If it is already unlocked but you are still
not able to flash the ROM, then just extract the .zip file of the ROM into a new folder, find the boot.img file from
that directory and flash it up on your phone or tablet via fastboot on your PC.
(2) Make sure that you are having the appropriate Radio or Baseband version installed on your device which is
supported by the custom ROM you are trying to flash. Most of the ROMs requires the latest version of Baseband, so
just update or upgrade your device to the latest Baseband version and then try to install the ROM once again.
(3) Update your device to the supported / latest build of official firmware before trying to install the ROM. You can
do it from – Settings > About Phone / Device > Software Update.
(4) Make sure you are having the supported or required kernel installed on your phone or tab. If it’s not, then flash
a new kernel right away and try to install your custom ROM once again.
(5) Is the ROM which you are trying to flash really works ? Find out whether it is working for other users or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Error Status 0
Well sometimes while flashing some ROMs especially the cooked ones we get Error status 0 in the CWM Recovery
this error is an indicator of Wrong Update Binary.This is usually caused by an incompatible update-binary in edify ZIPs. Replacing it with a compatible one, then re-signing the ZIP, will usually fix this error.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now it's time for the partitions :good:
Let’s start with a list of standard internal memory partitions on Android phones and tablets. These are:
/boot
/system
/recovery
/data
/cache
/misc
In addition, there are the SD card partitions.
/sdcard
/sd-ext
Note that only /sdcard is found in all Android devices and the rest are present only in select devices. Let’s now take a look at the purpose and contents of each of these partitions.
/boot
This is the partition that enables the phone to boot, as the name suggests. It includes the kernel and the ramdisk. Without this partition, the device will simply not be able to boot. Wiping this partition from recovery should only be done if absolutely required and once done, the device must NOT be rebooted before installing a new one, which can be done by installing a ROM that includes a /boot partition.
/system
This partition basically contains the entire operating system, other than the kernel and the ramdisk. This includes the Android user interface as well as all the system applications that come pre-installed on the device. Wiping this partition will remove Android from the device without rendering it unbootable, and you will still be able to put the phone into recovery or bootloader mode to install a new ROM.
/recovery
The recovery partition can be considered as an alternative boot partition that lets you boot the device into a recovery console for performing advanced recovery and maintenance operations on it. To learn more about this partition and its contents, see the ‘About Android Recovery’ section of our guide to ClockworkMod recovery.
/data
Also called userdata, the data partition contains the user’s data – this is where your contacts, messages, settings and apps that you have installed go. Wiping this partition essentially performs a factory reset on your device, restoring it to the way it was when you first booted it, or the way it was after the last official or custom ROM installation. When you perform a wipe data/factory reset from recovery, it is this partition that you are wiping.
/cache
This is the partition where Android stores frequently accessed data and app components. Wiping the cache doesn’t effect your personal data but simply gets rid of the existing data there, which gets automatically rebuilt as you continue using the device.
/misc
This partition contains miscellaneous system settings in form of on/off switches. These settings may include CID (Carrier or Region ID), USB configuration and certain hardware settings etc. This is an important partition and if it is corrupt or missing, several of the device’s features will will not function normally.
/sdcard
This is not a partition on the internal memory of the device but rather the SD card. In terms of usage, this is your storage space to use as you see fit, to store your media, documents, ROMs etc. on it. Wiping it is perfectly safe as long as you backup all the data you require from it, to your computer first. Though several user-installed apps save their data and settings on the SD card and wiping this partition will make you lose all that data.
On devices with both an internal and an external SD card – devices like the Samsung Galaxy S and several tablets – the /sdcard partition is always used to refer to the internal SD card. For the external SD card – if present – an alternative partition is used, which differs from device to device. In case of Samsung Galaxy S series devices, it is /sdcard/sd while in many other devices, it is /sdcard2. Unlike /sdcard, no system or app data whatsoever is stored automatically on this external SD card and everything present on it has been added there by the user. You can safely wipe it after backing up any data from it that you need to save.
/sd-ext
This is not a standard Android partition, but has become popular in the custom ROM scene. It is basically an additional partition on your SD card that acts as the /data partition when used with certain ROMs that have special features called APP2SD+ or data2ext enabled. It is especially useful on devices with little internal memory allotted to the /data partition. Thus, users who want to install more programs than the internal memory allows can make this partition and use it with a custom ROM that supports this feature, to get additional storage for installing their apps. Wiping this partition is essentially the same as wiping the /data partition – you lose your contacts, SMS, market apps and settings.
With this, we conclude our tour of Android partitions. Now whenever you install a ROM or mod that requires you to wipe certain partitions before the installation, you should be in a better position to know what you’re losing and what not and thus, you’ll know what to backup and what not.
ADB-Android Debugging Bridge
Android Debug Bridge (adb) is a versatile command line tool that lets you communicate with an emulator instance or connected Android-powered device. It is a client-server program that includes three components:
A client, which runs on your development machine. You can invoke a client from a shell by issuing an adb command. Other Android tools such as the ADT plugin and DDMS also create adb clients.
A server, which runs as a background process on your development machine. The server manages communication between the client and the adb daemon running on an emulator or device.
A daemon, which runs as a background process on each emulator or device instance.
You can find the adb tool in <sdk>/platform-tools/.
When you start an adb client, the client first checks whether there is an adb server process already running. If there isn't, it starts the server process. When the server starts, it binds to local TCP port 5037 and listens for commands sent from adb clients—all adb clients use port 5037 to communicate with the adb server.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The server then sets up connections to all running emulator/device instances. It locates emulator/device instances by scanning odd-numbered ports in the range 5555 to 5585, the range used by emulators/devices. Where the server finds an adb daemon, it sets up a connection to that port. Note that each emulator/device instance acquires a pair of sequential ports — an even-numbered port for console connections and an odd-numbered port for adb connections. For example:
Emulator 1, console: 5554
Emulator 1, adb: 5555
Emulator 2, console: 5556
Emulator 2, adb: 5557
and so on...
As shown, the emulator instance connected to adb on port 5555 is the same as the instance whose console listens on port 5554.
Once the server has set up connections to all emulator instances, you can use adb commands to access those instances. Because the server manages connections to emulator/device instances and handles commands from multiple adb clients, you can control any emulator/device instance from any client (or from a script).
Note: When you connect a device running Android 4.2.2 or higher to your computer, the system shows a dialog asking whether to accept an RSA key that allows debugging through this computer. This security mechanism protects user devices because it ensures that USB debugging and other adb commands cannot be executed unless you're able to unlock the device and acknowledge the dialog. This requires that you have adb version 1.0.31 (available with SDK Platform-tools r16.0.1 and higher) in order to debug on a device running Android 4.2.2 or higher.
Syntax
You can issue adb commands from a command line on your development machine or from a script. The usage is:
adb [-d|-e|-s <serialNumber>] <command>
If there's only one emulator running or only one device connected, the adb command is sent to that device by default. If multiple emulators are running and/or multiple devices are attached, you need to use the -d, -e, or -s option to specify the target device to which the command should be directed.
LOGCAT
The Android logging system provides a mechanism for collecting and viewing system debug output. Logs from various applications and portions of the system are collected in a series of circular buffers, which then can be viewed and filtered by the logcat command. You can use logcat from an ADB shell to view the log messages.
-b <buffer> Loads an alternate log buffer for viewing, such as event or radio. The main buffer is used by default. See Viewing Alternative Log Buffers.
-c Clears (flushes) the entire log and exits.
-d Dumps the log to the screen and exits.
-f <filename> Writes log message output to <filename>. The default is stdout.
-g Prints the size of the specified log buffer and exits.
-n <count> Sets the maximum number of rotated logs to <count>. The default value is 4. Requires the -r option.
-r <kbytes> Rotates the log file every <kbytes> of output. The default value is 16. Requires the -f option.
-s Sets the default filter spec to silent.
-v <format> Sets the output format for log messages. The default is brief format. For a list of supported formats, see Controlling Log Output Format.
awesome thread to learn everything in a quick while
Again.? :good:
But highlight the Status error with big & bold font.
Disturbed™ said:
Again.? :good:
But highlight the Status error with big & bold font.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think he's trying to take over XDA
But just to keep this on topic, great thread for those who are learning and aren't sure what certain things are for.
I guess I'll have to make another thread in this forum just so other RCs don't take all the ideas
SGS2 FAQ | HTC One FAQ
KidCarter93 said:
I think he's trying to take over XDA
But just to keep this on topic, great thread for those who are learning and aren't sure what certain things are for.
I guess I'll have to make another thread in this forum just so other RCs don't take all the ideas
SGS2 FAQ | HTC One FAQ
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lolzzz.. Yes buddy. He is something else.
Collecting Informations & useful stuff for all users. May be in near future, he will take over XDA.
It's all your love guys. Sometimes even my guides correct my mistakes!
Started from the bottom
Guys if you like this thread please press the tip us button so that more and more people who are willing to learn about android phone and how they work can get help.
I will be grateful to you all.
Started from the bottom
Very nice write up TechnoCrat :good::good::good:
TEAM MiK
MikROMs Since 3/13/11
Long way to go mate!
Congo! This thread got featured on XDA Portal
http://www.xda-developers.com/android/android-101-how-it-all-fits-together/
Thank you very much. I needed this definition thread. I kinda understand but it'd nice to hear official language that's understandable.
Sent from that FBI van parked down the street.
Thanks for the CWM errors write up and another bookmark.
Tha TechnoCrat said:
i. The kernel.
If you’re feeling exceptionally geeky, plug your Android phone into the USB port on your PC and let the PC boot from the USB device. No, it doesn’t actually load, but you can watch the animation while it tries to match up the hardware support with what’s inside your PC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What. The. Hell. Are you talking about?
If you mean booting the device's kernel on the PC, unless the device uses an x86 processor, it flat out will not boot, let alone mount the device's system, to display the bootanimation.zip
/snarkieness
Sorry, I had to let that out.
Also, init is called/started after the kernel has started, and generally after it has setup most of the hardware.
so I’ll simply say that DalvikVM is a register-based machine versus true JavaVMs which are stack based.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't even truly understand that, so could add a little more detail, or remove it?
I'm speaking mostly from my implied knowledge, gained from tinkering with android/linux for a few years.
ADB and Logcat added
Hey, Thanks for the article. Can you talk about root? There is some mis-leading information and I really want to learn about it. Thanks again.
ak700 said:
Hey, Thanks for the article. Can you talk about root? There is some mis-leading information and I really want to learn about it. Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay buddy
Editone! !!
"Thanks button is just to avoid "THANKS" posts in threads. Nothing more than that. Don't ask in signature or post for it and defeat the purpose why it was introduced"
Bump to update newbies
"Thanks button is just to avoid "THANKS" posts in threads. Nothing more than that. Don't ask in signature or post for it and defeat the purpose why it was introduced"

[SUPPORT] Ouya Boot Menu Support Thread

Hello everyone,
This thread previously was a discussion area for the Ouya Boot Menu feature during its early development.
It's now being transitioned to a support area. The new project description/download page is at:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2499673.
Thanks!
CWM Bootloop
Hal9k+1 said:
Hello everyone, attached is the ZIP of an updated CWM Recovery IMG file.
This image is based on the latest stock Ouya kernel in GitHub. The kernel contains some newer HDMI code, which will hopefully increase the chance of getting the CWM graphics showing up properly. I also turned off HDMI’s HDCP in the compile (not needed for a utility partition such as this), and grabbed a patch from Kulve’s Ouya kernel fork to really ensure HDCP bypass.
More importantly, the image contains Tasssadar’s excellent work involving KExec-HardBoot. This technology should allow for the implementation of a “fastboot boot”-related capability from a running ROM, enabling kernel chain loading. The recovery image in particular will be a place to practice with KExec-HardBoot, and come up with a booting method that could eventually be flashed to the boot/kernel partition.
It is fine (and recommended) to fastboot to this image as a quick verification of things. However, it will be necessary to flash to the Recovery (“SOS”) partition for proper testing of KExec-HardBoot, since there’s an embedded reboot (to Recovery in this case) in there. Do *NOT* flash this to the Boot.
A simple chain load test can be done by extracting “zImage” from this image, and “initramfs.cpio.gz” from your current ROM kernel. (Included is “unmkbootimg” that can help here - runs on Linux.) Push these to /tmp on the Ouya while it is running this image. Then enter the Ouya shell and do:
kexec --load-hardboot zImage --initrd initramfs.cpio.gz --mem-min=0xA0000000 --command-line=”$(cat /proc/cmdline)”
kexec -e
It should come up with this new kernel under your current ROM’s environment. As verification, you should see kexec files under /sys/kernel.
I’m looking to implement a basic chain loading application. It would come up before the Recovery and ADB services, and do the following:
% Pause for a bit, to allow any Alt-SysRq keyboard action (jump to Recovery or Bootloader) that may be needed.
% Check for any attached USB mass-storage devices (e.g., thumb drive), and look for the file “kernel.img”. Pull it in and boot it if present.
% If that failed, then look to “/system/kernel.img” on the Ouya itself, and boot it.
% And if that didn’t pan out, then exit and allow Recovery/ADB services to come up.
I hope all of this will be of help to others along the way!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will this help with the problem I have?..
New update today it downloads automatically and then reboot to CWM and it fail verification...reboot system and it does all over again?...Any ideas Plz
View2Askew said:
Will this help with the problem I have?..
New update today it downloads automatically and then reboot to CWM and it fail verification...reboot system and it does all over again?...Any ideas Plz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand. It sounds like the new stock firmware update is failing to go in, perhaps because of consistent download corruption. Whether you're actually being dropped in to the recovery partition is unclear. You might try the download again with the other networking type (Ethernet vs WiFi). You might also just disconnect from the network for the time being, and see if you remain in the firmware without interruption. From there you can consider setting up ADB to see if you can administer the Ouya from a PC.
My post is more for the developers at heart, just in case my investigation piqued anyone's interest. Ideally the post would go in the Development section, but I evidently need a few more posts here to unlock that area.
Best of luck!
Dual booting
Yes, please do enable dual/multi booting
Is there something I can do to help in that regard?
kulve said:
Yes, please do enable dual/multi booting
Is there something I can do to help in that regard?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks kulve, and thank you for the kernel patch set. I need to get familiar with the offerings there.
I don't see any blockages in my plan so far; I just need to start in and see what comes up. At least it's a better feeling than the dead-ends encountered with the U-Boot and regular KExec investigations.
Someone more enterprising could possibly port in the MultiROM project, but I'll stick with this. Will let you know if I get stuck.
My findings so far...
- I've finally decided that shutting off HDCP in the build does nothing to help avoid the funky pink/purple squeezed screen that sometimes appears when CWM comes up. With my Asus monitor, I see the issue when the monitor was in sleep mode. Likewise, if I can switch the monitor to HDMI input at the same time as starting Recovery, then it's fine. It may be possible to hack in a fix by somehow starting and closing an HDMI session shortly before CWM itself starts. (I don't want to fight this too hard but would be nice to resolve.)
- I see how to pull the kernel and ramdisk out of an Android image (on the Ouya itself), so that they could be passed to KExec-HardBoot. I've done it with a script as a test but it may end up in an executable.
- I tried out a USB thumb drive. It's detected but no block device is made available under /dev -- I've finally decided that support is likely in a kernel module, which does not exist on the Recovery image. I'm probably not going to sweat this due to the next item.
- I notice that the CWM application can read the Ouya power button as something comparable to a keyboard key press. Borrowing this capability may allow us to count the button presses in a limited time range, and thus boot an appropriate image. (Would be easier than dealing with the pairing of the controller, but at least still wouldn't require a keyboard.) With this line of thought, I'm thinking the main image could sit in /system while any alternates could be in /sdcard or /data.
So in general, studying the code of the CWM application appears to be the next direction. Thanks - feel free to send any ideas.
Hal9k+1 said:
- I've finally decided that shutting off HDCP in the build does nothing to help avoid the funky pink/purple squeezed screen that sometimes appears when CWM comes up. With my Asus monitor, I see the issue when the monitor was in sleep mode. Likewise, if I can switch the monitor to HDMI input at the same time as starting Recovery, then it's fine. It may be possible to hack in a fix by somehow starting and closing an HDMI session shortly before CWM itself starts. (I don't want to fight this too hard but would be nice to resolve.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does the rendering in CWM? Is it Android or something lower level? I think my kernel has better HDMI support but for that the software needs to use that explicitly instead of the default one as there is not internal LCD panel (/dev/graphics/fb0 vs. fb1).
kulve said:
What does the rendering in CWM? Is it Android or something lower level? I think my kernel has better HDMI support but for that the software needs to use that explicitly instead of the default one as there is not internal LCD panel (/dev/graphics/fb0 vs. fb1).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does look to be low-level, as CWM directly opens /dev/graphics/fb0 and uses ioctl() on it. I've decided to try my own compile of CWM as it does look to be a nice base for the booting effort. Will definitely look to your patches for the improved HDMI when I'm all ready -- thanks!
Hal9k+1 said:
It does look to be low-level, as CWM directly opens /dev/graphics/fb0 and uses ioctl() on it. I've decided to try my own compile of CWM as it does look to be a nice base for the booting effort. Will definitely look to your patches for the improved HDMI when I'm all ready -- thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed your comments related to this on the "Ouya CWM Recovery" thread but I'm not allowed to post there, so I'll post here.
Or actually repost as I'm mostly repeating myself. I had all kinds of issues in getting output using /dev/graphics/fb0 in Linux with the stock Ouya kernel but after some fixes the fb1 seems to work quite reliable. I get the output even if I don't have HDMI plugged in during the boot and it chooses the right resolution both for my TV (1080p) and for my monitor (1680x1050).
To all: I have updated the attachment that's present on the first post. I've synced to the latest Ouya kernel and pulled in the next HDMI patch set from Kulve. My HDMI issue now appears to be fully resolved.
Kulve: Thanks so much for refocusing me! I should have grabbed the patch from day 1, but that summary description had me a bit spooked. Note that I kept the HDMI/PRIMARY symbol enabled, so there's still only the fb0 device on this kernel.
With this handled and due to my thinking in general, I'm going to back away from trying to compile CWM itself -- I don't want to invest in CM10.1's environment at this time. Instead I will borrow CWM's UI and input technology to build an independent front-end with this Ubuntu/glibc environment I have working. My idea is to release another Recovery image when that's ready so we'll have a chance to practice/debug before moving to the Boot image.
Hal9k+1 said:
Kulve: Thanks so much for refocusing me! I should have grabbed the patch from day 1, but that summary description had me a bit spooked. Note that I kept the HDMI/PRIMARY symbol enabled, so there's still only the fb0 device on this kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hit the Thanks button
Anyway, do you have your kernel source code somewhere? Being able to use multiple resolutions on HDMI while keeping it as primary might be something that many Ouya Android gamers want as they might be able to play at 720p then.
ooo nice, ill try it out and see what happens
kulve said:
Hit the Thanks button
Anyway, do you have your kernel source code somewhere? Being able to use multiple resolutions on HDMI while keeping it as primary might be something that many Ouya Android gamers want as they might be able to play at 720p then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done! :laugh:
My modified files were tarred up and placed in the ZIP; let me know of any possible issue. I'm not planning on a GIT account, but anyone may feel free to pull anything back to their project. Also I understand that sticking with HDMI/PRIMARY may reduce some of the capability/flexibility you're seeing, but I wanted to stay honored to the Android/CM layout expectation if possible.
Hal9k+1 said:
Done! :laugh:
My modified files were tarred up and placed in the ZIP; let me know of any possible issue. I'm not planning on a GIT account, but anyone may feel free to pull anything back to their project. Also I understand that sticking with HDMI/PRIMARY may reduce some of the capability/flexibility you're seeing, but I wanted to stay honored to the Android/CM layout expectation if possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any chance of getting some concise installation instructions?
zondajag said:
Any chance of getting some concise installation instructions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's a quick executive summary until I can update the 1st post.
I'm reminded there's another XDA project (Ouya Safe Recovery) with a very similar goal as this, and works by reversing the Boot and Recovery concepts. However it's completely incompatible with us, and those users should not be doing any flashing -- at least not until we have a Boot image ready.
First step is to get rcvy092613.img to the Ouya in its /tmp directory. This may be done with an "adb push rcvy092613.img /tmp" command, or can by done through Secure Copy if an appropriate SSH server is set up.
Next step is to access the Ouya shell, either running from the main ROM or from a Recovery ROM. Be sure to become root (ensure "#" in the prompt) as needed.
Run the following to back up the old image:
cd /dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/
dd if=SOS of=/sdcard/old_rcvy.img
Make sure the new image is correct - should see "2a882d1ba8c2d543503cacb49ab0d397":
md5sum /tmp/rcvy092613.img
On to flashing Recovery:
dd if=/tmp/rcvy092613.img of=SOS
Now wait at least a full minute in case there is any internal flushing still taking place. And to finish up:
sync
reboot recovery
Aye....never enough time to tinker it seems, especially with getting over this flu.
At this point I have my own compiled code splitting the boot image file, as well as counting the power button clicks.
I want to see if I can make a welcome/instruction screen, probably by getting CWM's minui down to its core essence. From there it will hopefully just be normal integration work to achieve a new Recovery for testing.
Everyone, a new boot menu is ready for testing. Please read through the first post to see if you'd like to try it out. Apologies once again for the delay in getting this ready.
Hal9k+1 said:
Everyone, a new boot menu is ready for testing. Please read through the first post to see if you'd like to try it out. Apologies once again for the delay in getting this ready.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did I read correctly that the image support multibooting?
kulve said:
Did I read correctly that the image support multibooting?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi again Kulve. It supports three Android boot images - the main + two alternates: kernel.img, kernelA1.img, & kernelA2.img. It prefers to see the selected image in /sdcard, but will shift to /system as needed.
So, it is multi-booting, but you should keep in mind that there is still only the single /system partition. So installing two normal ROMs together probably won't work out, due to that common storage area. However, one of the ROMs could be based out of /system, while any others could use some form of external/networked storage. Note that the Android image format contains both the kernel and the initial ramdisk, so I feel that a multi-boot arrangement could be done.
Hal9k+1 said:
Hi again Kulve. It supports three Android boot images - the main + two alternates: kernel.img, kernelA1.img, & kernelA2.img. It prefers to see the selected image in /sdcard, but will shift to /system as needed.
So, it is multi-booting, but you should keep in mind that there is still only the single /system partition. So installing two normal ROMs together probably won't work out, due to that common storage area. However, one of the ROMs could be based out of /system, while any others could use some form of external/networked storage. Note that the Android image format contains both the kernel and the initial ramdisk, so I feel that a multi-boot arrangement could be done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My kernel is hard coded to mount the Debian (or whatever) rootfs from /dev/sdaX so Ouya's internal partitioning doesn't matter. It would be really cool to be able to put kernelA1.im to /sdcard, an USB flash drive to the USB port and boot to Debian without tinkering with adb/fastboot/etc. on a PC.
I'm not currently using any initrd-images but adding something simple should be straightforward.

Can USB storage mount before launcher starts

Hello, I have an m050 head unit and a USB flash stick as well as sdcard for music storage. The problem is that when the unit starts from a cold boot it starts up the built in music app and attempts to play where it left off but it starts quicker than the storage mounts so it doesn't initially find anything and defaults into shuffle mode. Then a few seconds later the storage auto mounts and starts playing random playlists. Is there a way to make the storage mount prior to the interface launcher running? The head unit is rooted.
^^ Bump. Nobody else has this issue where media mounts too late for apps that restore themselves on cold boots? I've tried searching quite a bit but have gotten nowhere useful.
Still nobody on this? Or anybody have a hint on what I should be searching for? Or maybe I should be posting in a different forum? I'm having no luck. Basically I'm looking for a way to cause the USB and sdcard's media to mount as early as possible even if that means it's recognized as permanent media instead of auto mounting as removable just so it mounts and is available before the launcher starts when all the other apps that want to access it and the media scanner want to scan it so they don't error for not having the media available.
onedumslack said:
Still nobody on this? Or anybody have a hint on what I should be searching for? Or maybe I should be posting in a different forum? I'm having no luck. Basically I'm looking for a way to cause the USB and sdcard's media to mount as early as possible even if that means it's recognized as permanent media instead of auto mounting as removable just so it mounts and is available before the launcher starts when all the other apps that want to access it and the media scanner want to scan it so they don't error for not having the media available.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is very hard to do. It is in the init.rc file in your ramdisk image in your boot image. If you create a new boot.img with inside the modified ramdisk.img image you can tweak this. However, on every new ROM you need to rework that image again. And you need to be able read/write in the android init language, which is used in this init.rc file.
And by the way: there are more of these init.*.rc files in the ramdisk giving you the ability to tweak your system (or brick it).
Edit: If you find entries to Cyanogenmod giving you other options: That is correct as Cyanogenmod uses a more Linux-like approach giving you way more options to tweak your system. This doesn't work on non-Cyanogenmod ROMs.
surfer63 said:
This is very hard to do. It is in the init.rc file in your ramdisk image in your boot image. If you create a new boot.img with inside the modified ramdisk.img image you can tweak this. However, on every new ROM you need to rework that image again. And you need to be able read/write in the android init language, which is used in this init.rc file.
And by the way: there are more of these init.*.rc files in the ramdisk giving you the ability to tweak your system (or brick it).
Edit: If you find entries to Cyanogenmod giving you other options: That is correct as Cyanogenmod uses a more Linux-like approach giving you way more options to tweak your system. This doesn't work on non-Cyanogenmod ROMs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you, I think I'm getting headed in the right direction. I started reading "Android Internals A Confectioner's Cookbook" and I'll be working with an already prerooted ROM. However, it is not a cyanogenmod ROM. Are you saying getting the sdcard and/or USB drive to mount from the ramdisk via the init.rc file is only possible on a cyanogenmod ROM? Or did you mean something else? For this use case I don't think I'll mind the work to rebuild the ramdisk and boot image if it's possible since I won't be getting updates often since it's on a head unit and if I can get the media player to stop going into random shuffle every time it boots up I will be so happy cause it's driving me crazy that it can't resume.
onedumslack said:
Thank you, I think I'm getting headed in the right direction. I started reading "Android Internals A Confectioner's Cookbook" and I'll be working with an already prerooted ROM. However, it is not a cyanogenmod ROM. Are you saying getting the sdcard and/or USB drive to mount from the ramdisk via the init.rc file is only possible on a cyanogenmod ROM? Or did you mean something else? For this use case I don't think I'll mind the work to rebuild the ramdisk and boot image if it's possible since I won't be getting updates often since it's on a head unit and if I can get the media player to stop going into random shuffle every time it boots up I will be so happy cause it's driving me crazy that it can't resume.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No that is not what I meant. I meant to say that you might have found easy solutions, but those were most possibly for Cyanogenmod. Within Cyanogenmod you have more easy options.
It is relatively easy to modify the ramdisk.img and boot.img (I did it many times when I still built ROMs for other tablets). However, there is always the chance to (soft-)brick your device. Fortunately these intel devices can only be soft-bricked and it is only necessary to flash your device again with a "standard" rom.
Note that all tools are Linux tools. Maybe some are available for Windows as well.
If you want to continue with this you should download the pack/unpack tools for boot images (but you can find these on many places).
And something I did not yet do on these Joying devices, so search for yourself:
- Replace the original boot.img with your modified boot.img in your unzipped Joying ROM and flash your unit (I think this is the simplest one).
(- Or write the boot.img directly to your unit using rkflashtools (and this requires knowledge of the partitions on your system, but I do not even know whether these Rockchip flashtools als work on the Inte/Rockchip sofia units))
surfer63 said:
No that is not what I meant. I meant to say that you might have found easy solutions, but those were most possibly for Cyanogenmod. Within Cyanogenmod you have more easy options.
It is relatively easy to modify the ramdisk.img and boot.img (I did it many times when I still built ROMs for other tablets). However, there is always the chance to (soft-)brick your device. Fortunately these intel devices can only be soft-bricked and it is only necessary to flash your device again with a "standard" rom.
Note that all tools are Linux tools. Maybe some are available for Windows as well.
If you want to continue with this you should download the pack/unpack tools for boot images (but you can find these on many places).
And something I did not yet do on these Joying devices, so search for yourself:
- Replace the original boot.img with your modified boot.img in your unzipped Joying ROM and flash your unit (I think this is the simplest one).
(- Or write the boot.img directly to your unit using rkflashtools (and this requires knowledge of the partitions on your system, but I do not even know whether these Rockchip flashtools als work on the Inte/Rockchip sofia units))
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Thanks a bunch, I appreciate that. I'm gonna see if I can get traction today on replacing the boot.img route. I should be fine with the utilities, I'm on osx and can create a Linux VM as well as having a Windows too. Any recommendations on mount point paths for the the sdcard and USB stick? Currently the auto mounter puts them in /mnt/external_sd1 and /mnt/external_usb1. So I was wondering if I should put them in the same location or put them in /system or my guess is I should put them on new paths in /mnt as I believe I saw the init.rc creates /mnt on the root filesystem on every boot.
Post deleted. My answer was for a joying intel head unit. The head unit in this topic is not an joying intel head unit.
surfer63 said:
One thing I forgot which makes your task almost impossible if you want a "straight" ROM update.
the boot.img is inside the 5009_20.zip. As such you can easily replace that boot.img but the 5009_20.zip is a signed zip. You never get the original signing back which means that you won't be able to create your own "custom" rom as the ROM upgrade/update process will not accept it.
In other words: you need to do some direct replacing of the boot.img.
something like
Code:
adb connect <unit ap-address>
adb root
adb shell cp boot.img /sdcard/
adb shell dd if=/sdcard/boot.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p9
adb shell reboot
Note: I did NOT test this this!! Always check beforehand which block device you need to replace!
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I'm not sure this applies to mine? I've since found that I need to use the imgrepackerrk tool for unpacking and repacking for my specific ROM for RK chips. So far I've successfully unpacked everything so I can test out editing but I have not been successful yet due to the utility having a bug that affects just my ROM on repacking. The bug has been fixed in his windows version of the utility but not on the Linux so I need to set up my windows VM to repack in windows which I haven't done yet. I'll be trying it out this weekend.
onedumslack said:
I'm not sure this applies to mine? I've since found that I need to use the imgrepackerrk tool for unpacking and repacking for my specific ROM for RK chips. So far I've successfully unpacked everything so I can test out editing but I have not been successful yet due to the utility having a bug that affects just my ROM on repacking. The bug has been fixed in his windows version of the utility but not on the Linux so I need to set up my windows VM to repack in windows which I haven't done yet. I'll be trying it out this weekend.
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Sorry. my mistake. I have an intel joying and I'm constantly in intel joying threads. Above does indeed not apply to you. I will remove it.
Hello team,
I have the same problem with my Joying unit, and I don't find solution. I have a lot of MP3 in a usb key, but always the same issue when I start my car : music player starts but playlist is lost, mp3 not available. I need to wait a lot of seconds/minutes to load all MP3.
For info, I used original media player, but also Pi & Pulsar ... same issue
I tested with usb key, smal, medium, large, hard drive SSD ... but nothing
Did you find a solution to start music correctly when unit starts ?
Thanks.

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