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Very confused about Eris update!

elysianhero

Lurker
Jun 20, 2010
7
0
Hi! I'm new to these forums as a poster, but have often come here to learn new things or solve questions. But Now I have one that I cannot seem to find the answer to!

A few months ago, I rooted my phone and upgraded it to 2.1. There were many bugs with this release (the most annoying is the one where the alarm clock can't be shut off unless one resets the phone!), but overall I was very pleased. Of course, I read that it would be my responsibility to update my phone manually, which I was fine with. Now that the official OTA update has come out, I can't seem to find any information on how I am supposed to update manually. Some places I read have even said that people who installed 2.1 before the OTA will never be able to able to update their phone. Of course, 2.1v3 was recently leaked (I hear it is practically no different than the OTA), but another update is looming. The way I had understood it, I would be able to downgrade and "unroot" my phone at any time, essentially restoring it back to factory condition and allowing me to receive OTA updates. Now, it seems this is not the case?

If someone would be so kind to help me understand what my options are, why they are my options, I'd be very much obliged. I'm not going to whine about not being able to receive OTA updates from "big red" or anything, I just want to have a clear understanding of what joining the "underground society of leak users" means to me.

Thanks a lot everyone! You've helped me many times before, hopefully there's an answer to some of my questions this time too!
 
I guess all of them, I'm not much of a Linux poweruser. The point of my post, though, wasn't directed at finding individual solutions for small bugs, it was more directed at what the options are for me to update my phone post root/leak installation.

first of all i'm not sure if you're confused but... root and leak are two completely different things. if you leaked then you would not be able to root. so I'm assuming that you are rooted if you have superuser access to your phone. just to distinguish the difference between root and leak:

Root - you have total access to everything on your phone (SuperUser) and you can flash many different custom ROMs (some are updated to 2.1).

Leak - you have no access to system files, CANNOT flash custom ROMs, and can never root (unless someone miraculously finds a solution to do so).

So to answer your main question... you have an abundance of options being rooted. You can flash any one of the various ROMs which are based on 2.1 and have all the features of the "OTA" and many, many more!

I'm probably not covering everything here but i believe those are the main points.


{From a Jealous.... but happy and content.... Lv3 user}
 
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Well, it seems that I'm only rooted then, since I am sure that the ROM I installed was custom! I guess that's good news. Well then, being a root user, what are my options if I want to update my phone? Would I be able to use the OTA updates? Of course, since I am using a custom ROM, I'd have to download the official update and put it on my SD card, rather than get it OTA, right? Or do I have better options? Thanks a lot for all the help already!
 
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well... that's the point I was trying to make... many of the custom ROMs are already based off the 2.1 update (and in most cases are better than OTA)... so there is not really a need to worry about updating your phone to the OTA...

when a new update comes out... most likely devs will create a new custom ROM based off that update... and so on and so on...
 
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I did root it to install the leak, but I think I prefer to have fixed features than a rooted phone. As for my specific build number, it's 2.26.605.4.

If your software version number is 2.26.605.4, then it is likely that you have leak-V2 on your phone.

Note that I say "likely" because there were rooted dev ROMs released that were based on leak-V2, so it would be possible to see that software # reported, but have a root ROM.

However, reading between the lines (confusion from elysianhero about what is on the phone), I would put my money on him/her having Leak-V2.

elysianhero, the way to confirm this is to:

Power your phone off, then start it back up by holding down the Send+End/Power buttons simultaneously until the screen comes on.

If the top line contains "S-ON", and the 2nd line contains 1.49.0000, then you most certainly have Leak-V2 installed, not root.

If that is the case, the best thing that you can do is to install Leak-V3. It will put on your phone the exact software that is currently shipping on Eris units that are dribbling out of VZW right now.

Note that this install resets your phone to a factory state; you will need to set it up again from scratch.

If you see "S-OFF" in the top line of the display, and 1.49.2000 in the 2nd line, then your phone was rooted, and we should take different steps.

What do you see there?

eu1
 
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Rooted Leak3 (which is the 4th leak? lol) Rom Base DOWNLOAD - xda-developers

v3 update for Rooted users. (You must have root to install this. You will keep root when you install it) This is a wipe/reload root so you will have to reinstall all your apps and any data that is not synched to an external source may be lost.

Remember, do a nandroid first.

Then wipe you dalvik cache, factory reset and then load the zip using Amon Ra.
 
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Sorry it's been so long since I've responded to my own post.

Erisuser 1: Using your methods, I've identified that I definitely have root, which I had previously assumed was the case based on SyDTRaKKeD's information. But now I know for sure!

So, the next step is to identify what kind of rom to install then, right? I'm going to stick with custom roms because... why not? But, just as an fyi kind of thing, would it be possible to "unroot" my phone and get official OTA updates from Verizon? I'm asking just so I'm clear on my future options.

Next, I'd like to ask what a nandroid is in layman's terms. I'll definitely look it up, but it would be nice to get a more human response so I can understand it more clearly. My current assumption is that it's a backup program?

This last question might be really stupid, but are roms hardware specific? lol, I've still a lot to learn it seems!
 
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Sorry it's been so long since I've responded to my own post.

Erisuser 1: Using your methods, I've identified that I definitely have root, which I had previously assumed was the case based on SyDTRaKKeD's information. But now I know for sure!

So, the next step is to identify what kind of rom to install then, right? I'm going to stick with custom roms because... why not? But, just as an fyi kind of thing, would it be possible to "unroot" my phone and get official OTA updates from Verizon? I'm asking just so I'm clear on my future options.

Next, I'd like to ask what a nandroid is in layman's terms. I'll definitely look it up, but it would be nice to get a more human response so I can understand it more clearly. My current assumption is that it's a backup program?

This last question might be really stupid, but are roms hardware specific? lol, I've still a lot to learn it seems!

elysianhero,

First, I have to say that I seem to have made a huge and rather unbelievable mistake in my post up there - I'll go and correct it in a second, but basically

1.49.0000 = S-ON (= "Leaker" bootloader)
1.49.2000 = S-OFF (= "Root" bootloader)

That probably caused you no end of confusion - please, what bootloader version do you have?

Yes, Nandroid is a backup/restore method built into the menu system of the Amon_RA recovery.


eu1
 
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That probably caused you no end of confusion - please, what bootloader version do you have?
Haha, it didn't cause so much confusion as it did make me bummed out for thinking I was stuck with a leak. But, it's definitely 1.49.2000 = S-OFF. I remember now what process I went through to root it as well, and I installed grdlock's now-defunct 2.1 rom. Now, I guess all I need to do is install the v3 Update for Root that was linked previously.

Just to clarify, this means that I'll be running the same thing as non-rooters who received the official update ota from verizon, with the exception that mine is rooted, giving me superuser permissions, right? A lot of this is still a bit vague, but I believe I at least understand it in concept.

Also, is the v3 Update a better option over custom/cooked roms? I think I read that Sense-able 3.2 was pretty good, and was based off of the ota leak. Is this simply a matter of opinion? How do I tell which is right for me?

Thanks again for the help and feedback.
 
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Just to clarify, this means that I'll be running the same thing as non-rooters who received the official update ota from verizon, with the exception that mine is rooted, giving me superuser permissions, right? A lot of this is still a bit vague, but I believe I at least understand it in concept.

Someone else will have to speak up here, since I never used the "V3 update for root users". What you are describing seems a lot closer to the ROM (also by Jcase) called "Plain Jane". I gave that (V3 update for root) XDA link a cursory glance, and it seems like there's more than "just add root to OTA-2.1" going in in there, (e.g. the "market fix", etc). Note that Jcase released Plain Jane nearly a month after that "V3 update" thing - and Plain Jane was what he described as "Stock+Root+Overclocking".

Also, is the v3 Update a better option over custom/cooked roms? I think I read that Sense-able 3.2 was pretty good, and was based off of the ota leak. Is this simply a matter of opinion? How do I tell which is right for me?

Any ROM that comes from a dev is a custom/cooked ROM. Obviously, some depart from stock more than others.

The thing is, if you are operating in a conservative manner - which is to say, making backups (Nandroid) of your ROMs, the only harm in trying a new ROM you don't like is that you spend time to do so - you can always go back to ROMs you previously used exactly as it was configured by doing a (Nandroid) restore.

So, get Amon_RA on your phone's recovery partition (It should be there already, yes?) and get familiar with it enough to make a good backup, and go exploring. Making backups is the right thing to do anyway, even if you are not going to flip through a bunch of ROMs.

Just make sure to make a backup of your SD card to your PC every so often - just in case the SD card gets corrupted or something.


Since you are new to this, I will remind you: before you install any new ROM,

- Make sure you have a well-charged battery
- Boot into Amon_RA's recovery
- Make a Nandroid Backup
- Wipe Data/Factory Reset (and only then)
- Flash the ROM from your SD card.

If you are restoring a Nandroid backup, the steps are essentially identical to above, except that you can skip the wipe step (and the last step is obviously a Nand restore, not a "flash from SD card").

eu1
 
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