Root [Verizon] New VZW OTA breaks towelroot

[RBEmerson]

Sigh... here we go again. The new OTA update from VZW breaks towelroot V3 ("phone not supported"). Or have I missed the work-around?

 

[RBEmerson]

Sigh... I missed that geohot has gone over to the dark side... so much for towelroot.

The only other route to rooting seems to involve Odin, etc., which, I think, sets knox 0x1. Not cool.

 

[LDrifta]

Sadly i believe you are correct sir... it was only a matter of time till tbey caught on lol

 

[RBEmerson]

It's very much Monday morning quarterbacking, but I now believe this OTA update was VZW closing the towelroot exploit. There's really no surprise here; a response from VZW or Google was expected.

I'm grateful for the 6-7 weeks of rooting I had, but I do feel less than 100% pleased to hear geohot has grabbed his zero-day hunting gig at the expense of a lot of people who rely on towelroot. And, for the record, I do have some skin in this game: $50 worth of donation. Thanks to geohot, it'll be a long time before anyone else sees a donation from me.

 

[LavaTech]

Follow this XDA forum post, keeping in mind that flashing legitimate OEM signed firmware doesn't trip Knox.

 

[LDrifta]

So all thats needed is to be on latest update, but then odin flash the previous release kernel, towelroot device, the reflash new release kernel than boom!! Seems like a very lazy hot fix from vzw if yu ask me lol

 

[RBEmerson]

Follow this XDA forum post, keeping in mind that flashing legitimate OEM signed firmware doesn't trip Knox.

So all thats needed is to be on latest update, but then odin flash the previous release kernel, towelroot device, the reflash new release kernel than boom!! Seems like a very lazy hot fix from vzw if yu ask me lol

LavaTech, thanks for the pointer. Really. I do appreciate it.

But... I think LDrifta's point is worth considering. There are mice who see cheese sitting on a small board, ready for the taking, and there were mice who didn't see the spring-loaded wire loop headed for their necks... So has VZW left cheese out on a small board...? Or am I becoming increasingly paranoid?

 

[RBEmerson]

Assuming I go the ODIN route, and assuming flashing OEM ROM's doesn't trip knox, have I just done a FDR anyway? I need root for Titanium and fast dormancy management, plus it helps with FX, so root is a must. But I really hate having to go through cleaning up from a reset. I really do.

 

[LDrifta]

I personally cant confirm whether or not flashing oem firmware via odin wont trip but at this point if you want root bad enough you'll deal with it

On another note i guess it is good to have alternatives and not void your warranty.. so its really up to you and how bad you want root capabilities... eventually the day will come where there no avoiding a warranty break by rooting.. its just a matter of time...

 

[RBEmerson]

I suppose I'm just being anal about the knox state. At this point, I can't bring the phone back anyway.

Now, what I really, really want to nail down is what happens going the Odin route. Is the Odin route, in effect, a series of OTA's, or does it mean an FDR? If it's all effectively just taking OTA's, as far as the phone "thinks", then there should be no loss of personal data. If it's an FDR, not so good...

 

[LavaTech]

I suppose I'm just being anal about the knox state. At this point, I can't bring the phone back anyway.

Now, what I really, really want to nail down is what happens going the Odin route. Is the Odin route, in effect, a series of OTA's, or does it mean an FDR? If it's all effectively just taking OTA's, as far as the phone "thinks", then there should be no loss of personal data. If it's an FDR, not so good...

All that's being done with Odin in the forum post I sent, is flashing the kernels into the boot partition. It is much less than the OTA update and as it uses OEM signed kernels with intact/unmolested certificates it doesn't trip the knox flag/counter/efuse.

You can check Knox status without entering DL mode by using this small utility on playstore. HTH

P.S. I didn't experience any data resetting that I've noticed (absolutely NOT a FDR), but of course YMMV.

 

[RBEmerson]

I collected that app shortly after towelroot.

Thanks for the background info.

 

[RBEmerson]

Oh my. It's getting weird out.

I got ready to do the Odin flash for NCG and the the flash to NE9. But...

I flashed NE9 instead of NCG, did towelroot V3 (deleted the old towelroot apk and app first), and rooted the phone! Root Checker, SuperSU, Titanium, FX, and the terminal emulator (did "su -" and got to the root home directory) all confirm it. WTF??? I thought this was impossible!

BTW, no personal data is gone and knox=0x0 (as per Phone Info).