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Root [AT&T] New GS3 - Unlocked - Can't Update OS!?!?

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#51
Scary,

I don't get a "System Update is Available" notice. I must go into settings > About > Software Update, then the phone begins downloading the update (which as you know, fails to install). Correction on the file size! The update file size is 242 MEG.

I entered the commands you provided and get this. I can't help be feel bad about your struggle, I am very much over my head with this and I am certain you have far better things to do!

:bebored:








scary alien said:
Hey Rex, no worries about the delays :).

So the system update won't give you the option to "install now"?

Usually how they work is that by the time you've seen a notification, the update.zip (probably won't actually be named that) will have already been downloaded in your /cache (or /cache/fota in your case, I believe) partition.

So, by the time you see a "System Update is Available" notification, the file is there and ready and waiting for install. We just want to copy that file off / over to your SD card before it gets moved/deleted due to the install failing.

If you want to try to snag the file, that would be very helpful :).

Here's how I've done this in the past:

- wait for system update notification
- look in the /cache or /cache/fota partition for a large file
- use a root-enabled file explorer/manager to copy that file to your /sdcard

In your case, you might have to use the Android Terminal Emulator like we did before to find and copy the system update (OTA) .zip file:



(the size information you posted is very helpful and might allow me to find an already posted copy of that OTA)

Lemme know what you think!

:)
Click to expand...
 

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#52
rexbaum said:
Scary,

I don't get a "System Update is Available" notice. I must go into settings > About > Software Update, then the phone begins downloading the update (which as you know, fails to install). Correction on the file size! The update file size is 242 MEG.

I entered the commands you provided and get this. I can't help be feel bad about your struggle, I am very much over my head with this and I am certain you have far better things to do!

:bebored:
Click to expand...

Rex,

LOL and no worries about the better things to do ;) :).

So, when you do the Software Update check in the Settings, does it wait after the download before it tries to install? (that would/should be the typical behavior (in theory anyways :p)).

If it does do that, can you do the same commands as discussed above but "cd /cache" instead of "cd /cache/fota"? I'm thinking maybe the update.zip is downloaded in the top /cache directory vs. the /cache/fota as I first suspected.

Thanks!
 
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#53
When I click on the update section on "about phone" it goes to the samsung server and then begins the download. At the end of the download, I get a "restart is needed" with the only option being to click "OK"

Then the phone begins the androd figure update, and at 33% dies.

At this time, the phone restarts again and I end up with the phone in typical use stage.
 
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#54
rexbaum said:
When I click on the update section on "about phone" it goes to the samsung server and then begins the download. At the end of the download, I get a "restart is needed" with the only option being to click "OK"

Then the phone begins the androd figure update, and at 33% dies.

At this time, the phone restarts again and I end up with the phone in typical use stage.
Click to expand...

Aha! That's actually good! :thumbup: :)

If you can pre-launch the Android Terminal Emulator app and have it ready for the commands we've discussed above, you still should be able to long-press the home button to switch to that app before you have to click the "OK" button for the "restart is needed" prompt.

You could also (very easily) do this if you had/have access to the SDK's adb tool from a PC, but we'll leave that on the table for now so as to not muddy the waters :).

Does that above make sense? I think we're closer!

Thanks for hanging in there, Rex--I will as long as you want/need.

:)
 
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#55
Here is the result. The first set of commands produced this......





scary alien said:
Rex,

LOL and no worries about the better things to do ;) :).

So, when you do the Software Update check in the Settings, does it wait after the download before it tries to install? (that would/should be the typical behavior (in theory anyways :p)).

If it does do that, can you do the same commands as discussed above but "cd /cache" instead of "cd /cache/fota"? I'm thinking maybe the update.zip is downloaded in the top /cache directory vs. the /cache/fota as I first suspected.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
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#56
Okay, this time I will attach the screen cap! :p




scary alien said:
Aha! That's actually good! :thumbup: :)

If you can pre-launch the Android Terminal Emulator app and have it ready for the commands we've discussed above, you still should be able to long-press the home button to switch to that app before you have to click the "OK" button for the "restart is needed" prompt.

You could also (very easily) do this if you had/have access to the SDK's adb tool from a PC, but we'll leave that on the table for now so as to not muddy the waters :).

Does that above make sense? I think we're closer!

Thanks for hanging in there, Rex--I will as long as you want/need.

:)
Click to expand...
 

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#57
rexbaum said:
Okay, this time I will attach the screen cap! :p
Click to expand...

Perfect! :thumbup:

By the way, you should be able to safely ignore the "OK" prompt to keep from having to attempt the system update that you know isn't going to work (yet).

Now, if you can do the commands to copy it to your SD card for safekeeping and further analysis, we can do some more stuff (I suspect you might have already done the "cat" command that I showed above, but if not, you can do this:

# cat update.zip > /sdcard/rex-ota.zip
Click to expand...

After you have that file safely squirreled away on your SD card (i.e., as /sdcard/rex-ota.zip), you should be able to use a file manager (like ES File Explorer) to view and extract the updater-script file from there:

- download / install ES File Explorer (free) if you don't already have it
- open the app and navigate to your SD card (/sdcard)
- single click / short-press the rex-ota.zip file
- select ES Zip Viewer
- select the META-INF folder
- select the com folder
- select the google folder
- select the android folder
- select the updater-script file (so it shows a checkmark on the icon)
- click on the "Extract" icon at the bottom of the screen
- decide where you'd like to extract the files to ("current path" is probably easiest)
- now, you should have an "updater-script" file in your /sdcard folder, if you can post/paste that here or email it to me, then we'll have something to work with.

Secondly, the thing that I really want you to do is to download and install my OTA Verifier app (free in the Play Store).

- download and install the app
- you'll likely have to give approval for the app to run as root (this is helpful / useful since you are rooted and will allow the app to check more things and more thoroughly)
- use the Select File button to bring-up a file browser
- navigate to the /sdcard and find the rex-ota.zip file
- long-press the rex-ota.zip file and select Verify OTA .zip
- after the app scans that file and compares things, copy the contents of your clipboard (i.e., the output of the app) to a post here or in a file to send to me in a Gmail

The OTA Verifier app will simulate and cross-check what the system update does for verifying that it can and should proceed. My app won't actually try to patch or update anything--it's purely read-only.

This looks like a lot, so let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks!

:)
 
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#58
Okay, I located and named the file "Update.zip" and with the ES File Explorer, I see the file and the size is consistant with the downloaded file.

Hope this MASS of yidish makes sense!! LOL Okay, looks like the forum views the file as invalid. I will email.




After you have that file safely squirreled away on your SD card (i.e., as /sdcard/rex-ota.zip), you should be able to use a file manager (like ES File Explorer) to view and extract the updater-script file from there:

- download / install ES File Explorer (free) if you don't already have it
- open the app and navigate to your SD card (/sdcard)
- single click / short-press the rex-ota.zip file
- select ES Zip Viewer
- select the META-INF folder
- select the com folder
- select the google folder
- select the android folder
- select the updater-script file (so it shows a checkmark on the icon)
- click on the "Extract" icon at the bottom of the screen
- decide where you'd like to extract the files to ("current path" is probably easiest)
- now, you should have an "updater-script" file in your /sdcard folder, if you can post/paste that here or email it to me, then we'll have something to work with.

Secondly, the thing that I really want you to do is to download and install my OTA Verifier app (free in the Play Store).

- download and install the app
- you'll likely have to give approval for the app to run as root (this is helpful / useful since you are rooted and will allow the app to check more things and more thoroughly)
- use the Select File button to bring-up a file browser
- navigate to the /sdcard and find the rex-ota.zip file
- long-press the rex-ota.zip file and select Verify OTA .zip
- after the app scans that file and compares things, copy the contents of your clipboard (i.e., the output of the app) to a post here or in a file to send to me in a Gmail

The OTA Verifier app will simulate and cross-check what the system update does for verifying that it can and should proceed. My app won't actually try to patch or update anything--it's purely read-only.

This looks like a lot, so let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks!

:)
Click to expand...
 
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#60
rexbaum said:
Here you go scary genius!

:)
Click to expand...

Eureka! :party:

That's the ticket and the answer I was looking for! :thumbup:

I only see one failed expression which should match the expression we saw/found in the /cache/recovery/last_install.log file (or whatever that name was :p).

I'll verify that in a bit, but it means that the radio is probably the only thing that got flashed / changed on your device (good news on the count of things to deal with).

I just need to look at the updater-script file you sent me (thank you for that!) and verify / see if/that the update.zip would be trying to flash a new radio (i.e., versus patching it).

If that's the case, we can either build you a new update.zip and have you flash it via a custom recovery or figure-out how to flash your radio back to what the current update.zip file expects.

The only issue here is that I'm not experienced with the S3, so I don't have any hands-on experience in installing a custom ROM or flashing a new radio for your device, so we'll have to find someone (maybe our good friend funkylogic? :)) that will be able to help guide us.

Anyway, lemme check a few more things out and get back to you!

Great job, Rex! :)
 
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#64
^^^ +1 :thumbup: :)

Okay guys, I've been doing a little searching and research tonight and have found something very interesting things:

1. Found a very interesting thread over on XDA that shows a user from Cairo, Egypt with the exact same starting "About device" screenie that Rex posted in his OP:

[Official] Galaxy S3 Jelly Bean Update 4.1.1 Now in Egypt - Confirmed Kies and OTA - xda-developers

The OTA's discussed there are of a similar size as the one Rex reports, so I'm pretty sure it's a 4.1.1 JB OTA that Rex is getting prompted for (the size variations are surely due to country of origin (i.e., I believe Rex's S3 actually came from France and not Canada).

2. The information from the last_log file you extracted for us from the /cache/recovery directory shows that the OTA is failing a verification (apply_patch_check) on the mmcblk0p7 (radio/modem/baseband) partition. The problem with this is that I found the radio software that your "About phone" reports (I9300XXLH1) and calculated the SHA1 sum of that file and it matches one of the values that the apply_patch_check command is looking for (90aedf493ac005492e6a69e943252eb755211fe0).

In other words, the OTA installation should not be failing, but obviously is.

3. Another piece of the puzzle was/is revealed in the output from my OTA Verifier app that Rex kindly produced that shows the SHA1 checksum of the /dev/block/mmcblk0p7 partition has a value that does not match either of the two values from the apply_patch_check's command. This is the reason for the OTA's installation failure. But it does not explain why it is different or how it became different.

In other words, Rex's "About phone" reports having the I9300XXLH1 radio (baseband) installed, but the SHA1 checksum does not confirm / bear this out.

4. I believe that we can try to identify what radio software is actually installed on Rex's device by a few commands that I still need to put together and have Rex test. I'll need a little bit more time to do this and it's getting a bit late.

Ultimately, I believe we should be able to "fix" (re-flash) the I9300XXLH1 radio, but that is something that is typically done on a quiesced system--i.e., booted in custom recovery--but installing that would make the OTA file in validating the mmcblk0p6 (recovery) partition unless / until we flash it back after re-flashing the radio. Ugh--snake eating its tail :p.

I'd also hate to flash a radio that might impact the current functionality of Rex's device given that its currently in fine, working order :).

More later...g'night!
 
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#66
Cheers and thanks, Rex! :)

Okay, if you can pull-up your Android Terminal Emulator again and type this command:

Code: 
$ [COLOR="Blue"]su[/COLOR]
# [COLOR="blue"][B]strings  /dev/block/mmcblk0p7  |  grep  -i  I9300[/B][/COLOR]

that should work if your busybox utility has its links setup properly. If not, try this instead:

Code: 
# [COLOR="blue"][B]busybox  strings  /dev/block/mmcblk0p7  |   busybox grep  -i  I9300[/B][/COLOR]

and then paste the output back here (screen shot like you've kindly done before).

This should dump the version information of the radio that you currently have installed.

After we get that, I'd like to find the radio and download it to verify that the SHA1 checksum for that radio matches what my OTA Verifier app is reporting it's finding on your S3.

Thanks!
 
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#68
Ah, no worries, Rex :).

You can get it from here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stericson.busybox

After you download and install the app, open it and click the Install button.

The busybox is simply an all-in-one utility that packages a bunch of very helpful Unix / Linux commands / utilities in one executable (called the busybox).

It also sets-up symbolic links for those various commands and they all point to the busybox which allows commands like strings and grep to be used and strung together to do something useful like grabbing the displayable ASCII strings (via the strings command) from your radio software and find (via the grep command) the version information.

After you install the busybox, try running commands again and see what you get.

Code: 
$ [COLOR="Blue"]su[/COLOR]
# [COLOR="blue"][B]strings  /dev/block/mmcblk0p7  |  grep  -i  I9300[/B][/COLOR]

Thanks!
 
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#70
LOL and that's a little unexpected :thinking: (although at some level its good that it reports what your "About phone" shows).

That is indeed the same output I get when I scan the downloaded XXLH1 radio binary from the site I linked to before:

Scary Alien@LV-426 ~/rex
$ strings modem.bin | grep I9300
I9300XXLH1
I9300.004
aI9300.004
I9300
I9300XXLH1

Scary Alien@LV-426 ~/rex
Click to expand...

Hmm, not exactly sure what that means at this point...

So, either your radio partition is corrupted somehow but your actual radio is working just fine.

The difference could be a single bit off to cause a difference in the SHA1 checksums.

At any rate, we're probably still at the same place as we would have arrived anyway which is to decide if we should re-flash your radio (and at least we know that your device thinks you do and should have the XXLH1 radio) which requires installing a custom recovery --or-- modify the OTA's update.zip file to ignore the checks for the radio verification (which sounds a bit iffy to me--I don't necessarily like that idea) but which also requires installing a custom recovery.

As I indicated before, I'm not an S3 rooting expert, so I can't necessarily advise you or guide you through installing a custom recovery so you could re-flash the XXLh1 radio (which can also be done via the Odin utility which I've never used (never had to)).

Then, we'd need to verify that your re-flashed radio passes the SHA1 check via OTA Verifier (you wouldn't be able to retry the OTA installation because it will poop-out because you've changed the stock recovery to a custom recovery (catch-22)).

After verifying that your radio finally reports the proper SHA1 checksum, we'd get your stock recovery re-flashed and then let you install the OTA so you can get JellyBean (4.1.1).

There's probably other options / avenues at this stage where you might be able to flash the whole stock 4.1.1 ROM, but again, others would have to advise and walk you though that.

Lemme think and research a little more and maybe find some other folks that could look-in and advise.

Thanks again, Rex, you really have done great through all of this and have been more than helpful and knowledgeable in the efforts to help with your issue. Kudos, sir! :thumbup:

:)
 
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#71
Scary,

As I have said before, I feel horrible that you are dedicating so much time to my (relatively minor) issue. Since the thread is close to novel proportions, maybe an S3 Root guy will be drawn to it, read it and produce some idea. (?)

I do have a phone that I am enjoying (this S3), and worse case scenario, I also have the Nexus 4 to pull out again if I MUST HAVE the latest android OS. My issue with that phone is simply "storage." With my music and pictures/videos, I have the Nexus almost filled (bought the cheap 8gig). Maybe what I need to do is order the Nexus 5 32gig!

:)

You are a great representative of the android forum, and a good person to boot!

Rex
 
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#74
Mikessv said:
I'm jumping in this thread late but why don't you flash the newest modem or just flash a rom?
Click to expand...

Rex's original goal was to figure-out how to get the JB 4.1.1 OTA to install on his device. For all intents and purposes, it should be installing (as far as I can tell at this point).

I think that's where we maybe were heading, but I think Rex would need to be aware of the process and consequences and precautions to take ahead of time (i.e., backups, etc.).

I'm hopeful that re-flashing the XXLH1 radio would get him past the OTA installation issue.

funkylogik said:
Do you have a list of flashable radios mike mate?
Click to expand...

https://www.wuala.com/UpInTheAir/SGS3/Modems/I9300/ICS/CWM?key=n0KVwtIMZPE8

courtesy of this thread over on XDA:

xda-developers - View Single Post - [REF] Galaxy S3 Modem / Radio Collection (I9300 & I9300T ONLY) CWM & Odin Flashable

(double-check me, guys, since you're the S3 experts and not me).

:)
 
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