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Help How to prevent OTA updates?

TheBarron

Member
May 7, 2010
96
7
How do you stop the phone from checking for and applying OTA updates? I had rooted mine, and I pulled it out of my pocket tonight to find that it had updated itself. I haven't check what effect that has had on my root yet, but I expect that it will cause problems now or in the future.

On the EVO, there's a menu option to stop the update checker, but I didn't see that on the X.

Anyone?

Thanks
 
How do you stop the phone from checking for and applying OTA updates? I had rooted mine, and I pulled it out of my pocket tonight to find that it had updated itself. I haven't check what effect that has had on my root yet, but I expect that it will cause problems now or in the future.

On the EVO, there's a menu option to stop the update checker, but I didn't see that on the X.

Anyone?

Thanks

edit: HolyGrail pointed-out (see this post below http://androidforums.com/all-things-root-droid-x/132353-how-prevent-ota-updates.html#post1287239) that deleting (or disabling) the SystemUpdater.apk is the better way to go to keep OTA updates from happening.

As always, take care / caution about what you delete / remove or alter!

Here's my original post:

To keep OTA updates from coming in, you would rename your /etc/security/otacerts.zip file to something else (say "/etc/security/otacerts.zip-bak"). Cheers!

edit: there's also a copy of otacerts.zip in /system/etc/security, so it might be a good idea to rename that file too.
 
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To keep OTA updates from coming in, you would rename your /etc/security/otacerts.zip file to something else (say "/etc/security/otacerts.zip-bak"). Cheers!

edit: there's also a copy of otacerts.zip in /system/etc/security, so it might be a good idea to rename that file too.

Hmmmmm.......I was told not to do this, as has been my understanding from back in the day. I don't know if this still applies. Quote:

( If you rename otacerts.zip, it doesn't prevent the over the air update from downloading - it just prevents the complete downloaded file from passing the security test. If the download doesn't pass the security test, it simply tries again. Over and over and over again, downloading a 15MB file, destroying your battery life.

The solution is to allow it to download, and even allow it to install. It will copy the downloaded file to /sdcard/update.zip, reboot into recovery and attempt to automatically install it. Luckily, SPRecovery now blocks update.zip installs by default. Just allowing it to ATTEMPT to install the OTA update is enough to make it stop downloading over and over again. As you can see by my battery graph, as soon as I was able to make it stop trying to update, the battery usage leveled off.)


I don't know why users did it that way. I just delete SytemUpdater.apk, an that always seem to work for me.
 
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Hmmmmm.......I was told not to do this, as has been my understanding from back in the day. I don't know if this still applies. Quote:

( If you rename otacerts.zip, it doesn't prevent the over the air update from downloading - it just prevents the complete downloaded file from passing the security test. If the download doesn't pass the security test, it simply tries again. Over and over and over again, downloading a 15MB file, destroying your battery life.

The solution is to allow it to download, and even allow it to install. It will copy the downloaded file to /sdcard/update.zip, reboot into recovery and attempt to automatically install it. Luckily, SPRecovery now blocks update.zip installs by default. Just allowing it to ATTEMPT to install the OTA update is enough to make it stop downloading over and over again. As you can see by my battery graph, as soon as I was able to make it stop trying to update, the battery usage leveled off.)

I don't know why users did it that way. I just delete SytemUpdater.apk, an that always seem to work for me.

+1 HolyGrail, I think your post is better / more correct! (I'll update my one above in a second). I hadn't seen or heard of deleting the SystemUpdater.apk until you just mentioned it and I did a search and found a few references with your new info mentioned in it. I had only known about the otacerts.zip file.

Thank you for this!
 
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