Root SLOW Work in progress, porting custom recovery over

[misterfamilyguy]

All frustrated c800s,
Hi, I'm learning as I go, have been trying to port clockworkmod recovery to our phone for about a month now. I was working in subforum for e739 (MyTouch) and c800 (MyTouch Q) but it was just getting too crowded, also a lot of pessimism, we need optimism for this. There is currently a working recovery and dev for the e739, everyone has stayed away from the c800. I don't know why, everyone ignores me. So, I'm reaching out the the community and hoping that with some organization and pooled thoughts we can get this accomplished. I will summarize what I have learned so far:

To root, set up adb, run

adb shell
$ echo 1 > /data/local/lge_adb.conf
$ exit

Then run superoneclick newest version, which is 2.3.3. This is from

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1407961

It's best to then install a different Home program, then Titanium Backup and freeze or uninstall apps that are t-mo branded or you know don't matter. I sent the moderator a list. Just be sure not to delete the LG Home, If you soft brick you will need that on there to not get stuck in Force-close loop.

If you root and get stuck, try wiping, which is power down, power up with F+A+VOL DOWN+POWER BUTTON, let go power button when first LG logo shows up, the stock 3e recovery loads and wipes /data and /cache. It doesn't wipe /system, so thats why you need the LG Home in there. I think you can get around that by renaming your replacement home the same as the LG one, or placing the actual app file into /system/app, but I haven't tried either.

While on the 3e screen, if you hit the softkey button for Home, you get into the user selectable version, there is an option to flash update.zip. I BELIEVE this is pretty much our best bet at flashing a custom recovery.

So,
Currently I had some computer issues and had to delete my ubuntu install, so when I"m done moving I'll set that back up. But I've been working off of koush's directions for porting. The main quibbles are setting up and getting the recovery built.

For anyone wanting to start, you can find out how to set up your build environment from reading the info in koush's post, and

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=12878950&postcount=2

Some other helpful links:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=986059

http://www.koushikdutta.com/2010/10/porting-clockwork-recovery-to-new.html

http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=HOWTO:_Unpack%2C_Edit%2C_and_Re-Pack_Boot_Images#Unpacking.2C_Editing.2C_and_Re-Packing_the_images

Some notes. The partition structure is
major minor blocks name

179 7 8192 mmcblk0p7 =boot
179 15 462848 mmcblk0p15 =system
179 16 1048576 mmcblk0p16 =data
179 17 8192 mmcblk0p17 =recovery
179 18 102400 mmcblk0p18 =cache
179 20 8192 mmcblk0p20 =lgdrm
179 21 8192 mmcblk0p21 =multimedia

So the recovery.fstab is the same as for e739/e730, however, when flashing the already built custom recovery for those phones into my recovery partition, it won't boot. I can flash back the stock one, and it boots and wipes /data /cache, and flash the custom, nothing. I think there is something to that in the phones init.rc file, however I haven't had the time to check.

Last thing I did before I had to delete my ubuntu install was I was getting errors making the recoveryzip to try to do the fake-flash method. It was saying that the file size was too large. I think it can be compressed further, but haven't found too much info. Maybe the xda subforum for the gt450 or other optimus phones will shed light on that.

So, I'll check back in when I get back up and running.


**update 03/17/2012
Got my build environment set back up. I am uploading stock boot.img and recovery.img compressed in .zip format. Including md5sums for accountability issues that may arrise later:
86da068132b4c44afcb3bc31a96148b3 boot.img
00b5010e915b6f26a33a143f868dd2f9 recovery.img
6c88d56e952c0a2028c6fae36eebea37 recovery.img.zip
8245e47601ab3c56154207383acf9730 boot.img.zip

 

[ace7196]

Joined this forum just to be a part of the amazing-ness to come!

 

[laphoneuser]

Although I have no real technical expertise to offer, I own this phone, and wanted to show my support.

Thanks for starting the thread, and for your efforts with what I think can be a solid phone with some speed tweaks.

I'll be checking in now and then to see if there's anything I can do to help.

 

[Brendantron]

In post #476 of the thread on xda, deltacity describes a very similar situation with flashing the e739 recovery on our c800 as you're facing right now: it didn't boot.
He noticed the stock c800 recovery was 8mb while the e739 was 4mb. I'm not sure what that could signify since our recovery partition ought to be larger than needed, not smaller (which obviously would be a barrier).
Why is it larger? Is there something contained in it that the c800 system requires??

 

[ace7196]

Currently using the SuperCharge V6 script. Using the multitasking minifree setting performance has gone up pretty substantially.the multitasking minifree setting performance has gone up pretty substantially.

Using Spare Parts Plus I sent wifi to never sleep, so I do not use up my 4g data (not a problem, but at least wifi is faster). Some say it helps battery life.

Use Ti Backup to freeze all apps (NOT REMOVE). If you did remove (like I did before misterfamilyguy's revelations), the system/app folder is here. Credit here.

I'm using LauncherPro Plus. Fastest launcher with nice built-in, skinable widgets.

Boat browser seems the best for me. Mostly an updated Miren browser. I've tried Opera mobile/mini, dolphin, stock, firefox, and other random ones. Boat actually has the UA as android, so I get all the pretty formatted pages. The tabs and customizability is nice as well. If you're stuck on opera, you can grab a custom UA to make it try to load Android friendly pages, but the engine they use doesn't play nice with a lot of stuff.

Anyone have any other tweaks?

 

[vxbinaca]

Remove (yes I said remove thats the one safe thing to remove) LG Home and replace it with Zeam for max performance.

I think the instability I see is from removing any trace of that stupid car mode/Genius stuff. Was glad to get rid of it. Sick of hitting the button mid call and sending it into car mode. They make bluetooth headsets for a reason.

 

[misterfamilyguy]

If you remove LG Home research about puting your replacement into system/apps, or not its up to you. When testing I got a boot loop that I managed to turn into a force close loop because it couldn't locate a home app. I have also posted a list of apps I have frozen in the rooting post, you have to click the HIDE button to display them, one was the genius button and dragon dictation.

 

[misterfamilyguy]

ace7196,
I use adwlauncher, v6 doesn't seem to work with it. I get a lot of "not found" prompts instead of what I should be getting. I'm going to test out launcherpro and zeam

Brendantron,
I'm not sure if/why the file size matters, but to answer your question the c800 recovery image is quite a bit bulkier that the e739 from what I can tell because there are literally more files. There are double the .rc files and such.

I'm still moving, doing the big push this weekend, so hope to get my build environment back up by next thursday,,nobody else wants to do it along with me?

 

[vxbinaca]

If you remove LG Home research about puting your replacement into system/apps, or not its up to you. When testing I got a boot loop that I managed to turn into a force close loop because it couldn't locate a home app. I have also posted a list of apps I have frozen in the rooting post, you have to click the HIDE button to display them, one was the genius button and dragon dictation.

I know that already about the launcher, learned that lesson the hard way with my G1 a few times.

 

[vxbinaca]

misterfamilyguy: What do you need to start working on CWM within the next week. I will FedEx you a laptop with a burned ubuntu (why? just use Debian) CD. I'm dead serious.

If you're not working on it, lemme know so I can toss this turd in the trash and get a real phone.

Edit:

In the pane below I have the MyTouch Q a half star rating. I wish it the system would let me rate it lower.

 

[misterfamilyguy]

Vx I'm moving right now. My computer isn't even hooked up. Hope to be done by next Friday. I think I'm going to try to port rzrecovery first. If you hate the phone that much sell it on craigslist. You gotta remeber once we get recovery working we then hav e to make roms, which I imagine is more difficult

 

[Brendantron]

I'm still moving, doing the big push this weekend, so hope to get my build environment back up by next thursday,,nobody else wants to do it along with me?

I just got my PC set up again. I'm willing to dev along side you. At this point I'd really just be "monkey see, monkey do" but I will gamble this phone.

I saw an XDA interview with a real dev called Toastcfh.
Interview with Toastcfh – XDA TV | xda-developers
In it he says you have to thank the trolls for telling you "you can't do it" because it motivates you to prove them wrong. So, I don't know if vxbinaca here is going to keep wordplaying with himself to feel better than anyone with a better attitude than his, or if this offer of material support shows he can actually do something... productive. Either way, his little post back on XDA is *delicious*! Or I certainly hope so, since he's going to be eating those words.

 

[misterfamilyguy]

I just got my PC set up again. I'm willing to dev along side you. At this point I'd really just be "monkey see, monkey do" but I will gamble this phone.

I saw an XDA interview with a real dev called Toastcfh.
Interview with Toastcfh – XDA TV | xda-developers
In it he says you have to thank the trolls for telling you "you can't do it" because it motivates you to prove them wrong. So, I don't know if vxbinaca here is going to keep wordplaying with himself to feel better than anyone with a better attitude than his, or if this offer of material support shows he can actually do something... productive. Either way, his little post back on XDA is *delicious*! Or I certainly hope so, since he's going to be eating those words.

Cool,
I appreciate the help. In my first post I linked a few things that will help you get the build environment set up. I have to re-set mine up. I'm mostly done unpacking now and have my puter set back up. I was looking at porting over rzrecovery to try that out. His seems like it may have a little more response from the dev. If you get your environment set up maybe we can IRC or something to work this out. A few things that were worked out by someone else in xda, sorry don't recall name for credit. When I get environment back up, supposedly if you run unpackbootimg.pl on the boot img, it'll output most of this, I'll do this later to verify and fill in the gap.

base kernel address=0x00200000

the boot command line=console=ttyMSM1 androidboot.hardware=lgc800 lge.rev=rev_10 lge.reboot=pwroff uart_console=disable lge.frst=flag3 lge.hreset=off androidboot.emmc=true androidboot.baseband=msm

the page size=????

the partition layout =
179 7 8192 mmcblk0p7 =boot
179 15 462848 mmcblk0p15 =system
179 16 1048576 mmcblk0p16 =data
179 17 8192 mmcblk0p17 =recovery
179 18 102400 mmcblk0p18 =cache
179 20 8192 mmcblk0p20 =lgdrm
179 21 8192 mmcblk0p21 =multimedia

 

[Quixote]

Unlike some other users of that other forum, I am willing to risk my Q for science!
Worst case scenario I go buy something that CWM already supports.

So... that said.

What can I do to help?

 

[misterfamilyguy]

Cool,
I appreciate the help. In my first post I linked a few things that will help you get the build environment set up. I have to re-set mine up. I'm mostly done unpacking now and have my puter set back up. I was looking at porting over rzrecovery to try that out. His seems like it may have a little more response from the dev. If you get your environment set up maybe we can IRC or something to work this out. A few things that were worked out by someone else in xda, sorry don't recall name for credit. When I get environment back up, supposedly if you run unpackbootimg.pl on the boot img, it'll output most of this, I'll do this later to verify and fill in the gap.

base kernel address=0x00200000

the boot command line=console=ttyMSM1 androidboot.hardware=lgc800 lge.rev=rev_10 lge.reboot=pwroff uart_console=disable lge.frst=flag3 lge.hreset=off androidboot.emmc=true androidboot.baseband=msm

the page size=????

the partition layout =
179 7 8192 mmcblk0p7 =boot
179 15 462848 mmcblk0p15 =system
179 16 1048576 mmcblk0p16 =data
179 17 8192 mmcblk0p17 =recovery
179 18 102400 mmcblk0p18 =cache
179 20 8192 mmcblk0p20 =lgdrm
179 21 8192 mmcblk0p21 =multimedia

Here is output from split_bootimg.pl ::

Page size: 4096 (0x00001000)
Kernel size: 4026480 (0x003d7070)
Ramdisk size: 541470 (0x0008431e)
Second size: 0 (0x00000000)
Board name: 
Command line: console=ttyMSM1 androidboot.hardware=lgc800
Writing boot.img-kernel ... complete.
Writing boot.img-ramdisk.gz ... complete.

So, I think the Page size is what was referred to for rzrecovery, and I think the Command line is the correct command line for ''boot command line'' required by rzrecovery. No idead how the other person got the one before...

 

[misterfamilyguy]

Here is output from split_bootimg.pl ::

Page size: 4096 (0x00001000)
Kernel size: 4026480 (0x003d7070)
Ramdisk size: 541470 (0x0008431e)
Second size: 0 (0x00000000)
Board name: 
Command line: console=ttyMSM1 androidboot.hardware=lgc800
Writing boot.img-kernel ... complete.
Writing boot.img-ramdisk.gz ... complete.

So, I think the Page size is what was referred to for rzrecovery, and I think the Command line is the correct command line for ''boot command line'' required by rzrecovery. No idead how the other person got the one before...

Here is the output for stock recovery.img, somwhat similar

Page size: 4096 (0x00001000)
Kernel size: 4026480 (0x003d7070)
Ramdisk size: 780510 (0x000be8de)
Second size: 0 (0x00000000)
Board name: 
Command line: console=ttyMSM1 androidboot.hardware=lgc800
Writing recovery.img-kernel ... complete.
Writing recovery.img-ramdisk.gz ... complete.

 

[misterfamilyguy]

I'm now trying to figure out how to start working on rzrecovery and/or get cwm to work. Whenever I try to build recovery for cwm i get:

out/target/product/MyTouch_Q/boot.img total size is 4186112
error: out/target/product/MyTouch_Q/boot.img too large (4186112 > [3784704 - 270336])
make: *** [out/target/product/MyTouch_Q/boot.img] Error 1
make: *** Deleting file `out/target/product/MyTouch_Q/boot.img'

So, it makes it, then deletes it. Even though the original boot.img is 8.4mb and the supposed output is 4 mb.. I dunno.

 

[misterfamilyguy]

Last one was with the boot.img.. this one is with recovery.img:

out/target/product/MyTouch_Q/boot.img total size is 4186112
error: out/target/product/MyTouch_Q/boot.img too large (4186112 > [3784704 - 270336])
make: *** [out/target/product/MyTouch_Q/boot.img] Error 1
make: *** Deleting file `out/target/product/MyTouch_Q/boot.img'

I can't figure out why it won't do it....

 

[misterfamilyguy]

i think i figured out why getting too large errors. need to configure boardconfig, which i was skipping.

for some reason keep having to do this too when get unpackbootimg error. dunno why its not staying in my bashrc

export PATH=$PATH: (droidbuilddirectorybase)/out/host/linux-x86/bin

 

[misterfamilyguy]

Ok, so I think I figured out the boardconfig.mk issue.
I searched [FINAL] 3/18/2011 CWM Recovery on Dell Streak 7 - xda-developers
and found that someone suggested using

BOARD_BOOTIMAGE_MAX_SIZE := $(call image-size-from-data-size,0x00280000)
BOARD_RECOVERYIMAGE_MAX_SIZE := $(call image-size-from-data-size,0x00500000)
BOARD_SYSTEMIMAGE_MAX_SIZE := $(call image-size-from-data-size,0x07500000)
BOARD_USERDATAIMAGE_MAX_SIZE := $(call image-size-from-data-size,0x04ac0000)

I then ran

make -j4 recoveryzip

And didn't get an error. So, hopefully it worked. It even gave an output that was in the correct update.zip format, so seems good. I'm not going to flash on my phone right now cause gotta prepare dinner, but will test tomorrow. For anyone wanting to test it. Use the method to get into our stock 3e recovery. VOL DOWN - F - A- then when android pops up hit softkeys. then select flash update.zip. Do this at your own risk. If you got work early tomorrow, don't do it, if you got some important use for your phone coming up, don't do it. Just wait a bit until I can test it.
md5sum for this update.zip is

f38092c48c853bd51382d38f5439f75c

 

[vxbinaca]

I think LG released the code for the C800. 607 meg zip coming my way.

Edit:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-4VZvQ8gAQEczVSWmtnWnBRdXE1YlpLQ1VCNUp4QQ

 

[misterfamilyguy]

I ran it. It gets past verifying update package, says installing update, says replacing stock recovery with ClockworkMod recovery, then freezes and after a while reboots....anyone have any ideas?
On a side-note. Since when you boot into 3e recovery it wipes /data, and before that I replaced the stock LGHome with zeam home renamed and proper permissions set, it booted zeam just fine.

 

[misterfamilyguy]

I tried making the recovery image first, then the update.zip to see if that helps, but I don't have time to flash either today.

md5sum for update.zip

1604054821137b7a981cfaeffa6c1ec7

md5sum for zipped recovery.img

11c8118a3ebc341c1fc9304f9766f59b

Vx,
I've downloaded the source before, I just don't know how that is helpful. I've searched on how to build a recovery from source but couldn't find anything useful. Maybe you'll have more luck?

 

[miniman1013]

I tried making the recovery image first, then the update.zip to see if that helps, but I don't have time to flash either today.

md5sum for update.zip

1604054821137b7a981cfaeffa6c1ec7

md5sum for zipped recovery.img

11c8118a3ebc341c1fc9304f9766f59b

Vx,
I've downloaded the source before, I just don't know how that is helpful. I've searched on how to build a recovery from source but couldn't find anything useful. Maybe you'll have more luck?

So... I'm new to the whole ROM thing, so don't be too hard on me, but.... what do I do to test this?

 

[ace7196]

So... I'm new to the whole ROM thing, so don't be too hard on me, but.... what do I do to test this?

As awesome as volunteering is, if you do not know the difference between a recovery and a rom, I'm not sure how much help you can be.