• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Root Working OTG support

ShapeShifter499

Android Enthusiast
Apr 3, 2015
376
262
So I have finally gotten OTG to work! Was hard but in the end it was a ridiculously simple fix in the kernel source that got OTG working for the LG Volt. I compared other kernels for other devices that have the MSM8226 chipset and also have OTG. I found out that our LG Volt's kernel has everything required in place, but one line of code in the DTS or device tree files for our device that deliberately turns off OTG support. Why turn off such functionality in the kernel if everything else is already in place, who knows. What I do know is that OTG works now. Below is my compiled kernel, github, and video demonstrating OTG working. Hopefully the other rom developers can figure out the change and port it to the different roms that are for the LG Volt, maybe add it to TWRP as well.


Video is a bit longer than it should have been and kind of messy but it works in showing you OTG on the LG Volt. Shows a USB thumb drive working and a RTL-SDR dongle working.


Only for KitKat Stock or Debloated KitKat rom, like the one created by @Curtis1973
volt_dos_OTG1.zip
MD5: c8df7f1730eace0436a7e5a6ebed597e
https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=24459283995305288

You can see my one line edit at the Github
https://github.com/ShapeShifter499/android_kernel_lge_voltdos

I want to credit @spock1104 and @whoshotjr2006 for their work on the kernel thus far. OTG support probably never would have happened for the LG Volt without their work.
 
Last edited:
Sorry was late replying to you on this. Work had me tied up. Today has been first free day I have had in two weeks. Any way you got it I see. What functionality do you see it being useful for? I am not aware of otg to be honest.

No worries, I'm just happy I got OTG working at all.

OTG stands for On-The-Go and is a useful feature that allows you to connect USB devices to your phone via a special cable/adapter. It has so many uses that I can't list them all but here are a few examples.

Like I showed in the video above I was able to transfer files to a thumb drive and view them; great for being able to get copies of files from USB only sources quickly. Also like I showed I was able to use a DVB-T tuner as a Software Defined Radio on the LG Volt. Allows me to have a much more portable experience scanning around for interesting radio signals or even getting information during an emergancy/natural disaster when other sources could be offline. Many kinds of USB devices and Android specific OTG accessories now can be used.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Is the kernel you made the stock kernel with otg turned on or is it volt dos or something like that with otg turned on? Just curious. Thanks so much for getting it working and motivating other devs here.

I turned on the OTG feature using @spock1104's volt dos source but it seems this code is in place from the beginning. So you should be able to download the LG original source from their open source site and start all over with a fresh stock source if you wanted then apply my one line edit to enable OTG.
 
Upvote 0
Hi, sorry, I just stumbled on this because I was searching for a way to activate OTG on my Volt. I have, I guess a stock Volt running 4.4.2. I think I had done something to get it rooted when I first got it. Can I make this one byte change manually in the kernel? I don't know much about android. Or do I need to flash something? Any info would be helpful.
Thanks!
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones