[International / GSM] [HOW TO] Root the GSM/HSPA+ Samsung Galaxy Nexus

[DoctorEyeSight]

I thought if you unlock/root your phone all of the apps in the market would be "free" but it's not, it shows that I must purchase

 

[scary alien]

I thought if you unlock/root your phone all of the apps in the market would be "free" but it's not, it shows that I must purchase

Um, no...rooting will not get you paid apps for free (and we will be very careful here to not discuss how to do such a thing).

 

[rmleloup]

I've been barely around the block, on what feels like a tricycle... ^_^

I'm new to root, I have windows on my pc, and it absolutely hated the samsung drivers... I have a windows work laptop, same idea... However... my personal laptop, ubuntu 11.10 Ftw! Setup adb thinger, (pardon if typo) and fastboot. Rigged it. Unlocked phone, rooted, installed miui...

Worked great, minus the 4g on my Gnex Gsm Bell Mobility Canada.

So... Found a google stock 4.0.2 gsm. Tossed it on with another guide. Naturally my root exploded. So I used your guide to re root, and... presto chango, fantastico. This is amazing. It works in the first shot. I navigated my terminal to the key folder. Confirmed ./adb devices , ./fastboot devices that my Gnex was there. Did the work via copy paste (after putting the advised files in key directories), and perfection, soooo easy.

Dude, prop's to your variety options. I went via cwm, as I may eventually use that for an alternate better rom. This is amazing. Thank you, very very much. You are phenominal.

- Le_Loup

 

[scary alien]

I've been barely around the block, on what feels like a tricycle... ^_^

I'm new to root, I have windows on my pc, and it absolutely hated the samsung drivers... I have a windows work laptop, same idea... However... my personal laptop, ubuntu 11.10 Ftw! Setup adb thinger, (pardon if typo) and fastboot. Rigged it. Unlocked phone, rooted, installed miui...

Worked great, minus the 4g on my Gnex Gsm Bell Mobility Canada.

So... Found a google stock 4.0.2 gsm. Tossed it on with another guide. Naturally my root exploded. So I used your guide to re root, and... presto chango, fantastico. This is amazing. It works in the first shot. I navigated my terminal to the key folder. Confirmed ./adb devices , ./fastboot devices that my Gnex was there. Did the work via copy paste (after putting the advised files in key directories), and perfection, soooo easy.

Dude, prop's to your variety options. I went via cwm, as I may eventually use that for an alternate better rom. This is amazing. Thank you, very very much. You are phenominal.

- Le_Loup

You are most welcome, Le_Loup!

I'm very glad it was helpful (it was a lot of work to organize, but the credit really goes to the folks that the information was gleaned from--I just put my own spin on things and tried to make it a little more user-friendly where I could).

Cheers and thanks for joining us here at AF .

 

[theclash123]

Never mind, I fixed my problem. I guess something was wrong with the su zip... I updated the binary from the app, and now it works perfectly.

Thanks for the guide, though, the process of rooting, etc. is much less daunting now.

 

[thetrystero]

i'm using the clockworkmod method.

once in recovery, i get the error can't mount /cache/recovery/command
and when i try to mount the sd card i get the error can't mount /sdcard/. please help. what should i do, have i bricked it?
funny thing is, i was able to push the su.zip without any problems.

./adb push su.zip /sdcard/
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
1183 KB/s (1126078 bytes in 0.929s)

 

[scary alien]

i'm using the clockworkmod method.

once in recovery, i get the error can't mount /cache/recovery/command
and when i try to mount the sd card i get the error can't mount /sdcard/. please help. what should i do, have i bricked it?
funny thing is, i was able to push the su.zip without any problems.

./adb push su.zip /sdcard/
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
1183 KB/s (1126078 bytes in 0.929s)

thetrystero,

Apologies for the delay in getting back with you...

Can you tell us a little more about your situation:

Are you actually seeing the ClockworkMod screen or are you seeing the stock recovery screen?

Let us know about the steps and sequence of events that you are doing and at what point you're seeing what you are seeing.

We'll try to get you fixed-up .

Cheers!

 

[theclash123]

Oh boy. First of all, thanks in advance to anyone who tries to help me.
Here's what happened:

Rooted my phone in Jan. I don't know what I did but I had problems. I re-rooted, flashed AOKP ROM and leankernel, worked tremendously. Last night I flashed CWM touch recovery. Phone is still working. I haven't done any more customizing since. My phone still worked today. I turned it off about 4 hours ago. Turned it back on 2 hours later, still working. Now, ~25 minutes ago, I try to use it again. Much to my surprise, the screen doesn't turn on. I thought maybe the battery died, so I plugged it in. The charging screen doesn't show up, and I can't turn my phone on at all (neither booting in normal mode OR bootloader works) I am terrified. I DO NOT want this phone to die on me.
​

I'm not sure if I should post this in this thread or another one. If it belongs somewhere else, please direct me to where I should put it.

 

[gapi]

Pull the battery, wait a few seconds and put it back in and boot up.

 

[theclash123]

I've tried that many times, but to no avail. I'll try once again, though.

 

[theclash123]

Pull the battery, wait a few seconds and put it back in and boot up.

I tried that before, and it didn't work. Tried once again. Success! Thank you!

 

[gapi]

I've tried that many times, but to no avail. I'll try once again, though.

It sounds like you are bricked. Not good. I guess you should search for a how to recover a bricked galaxy nexus.

The last thing I would suggest is pull the battery
Pull the Sim card
Press and hold the power button down for 15 seconds.
Put the Sim card and battery back in.

Press and hold the volume up and down buttons and the power button together until you get a response. Hopefully the android with his belly open.

If so then use the volume rocker to scroll to the Recovery mode and hit the power button.

If you were taught well you made a backup. If so scroll to backup & Restore and do your thing.

If no backupwas made choose wipe data/factory reset. Or perhaps choose reboot system now and see how lucky you are.

Good luck

 

[theclash123]

I made a backup, but I won't be needing it. I tried a battery pull again, and it worked! Don't know what was wrong with it...

 

[Miguipigui]

Hi everybody! I'm from Honduras and about 3 months ago I got my GNex GSM bought on amazon. Not until this week did I finally made up my mind to unlock/root it since I dont have any type of warranty from all the way over here. I researched, read and read and finally went ahead on the unlock/root. I followed this post's intructions and succesfuly unlocked my phone. The problem came with the rooting.
I actually made a thread requesting help which explians in detail everything I've done if anyone would like to see. I didn't write on this thread until now b/c since it's an old thread (I think, first entries on Dec 2011) I thought maybe no one followed it anymore, so hopefully I'm wrong! Here's my issue:
I've succesfully unlocked using Wug's Root Toolkit. I went through all the steps for rooting but had problems with the final ones which tell you to re-flash Clockwork recovery with ROM Manager. Everytime I try to do that, it says "An error ocurred while attempting to run privileged commands".
That got me thinking I didn't have root, so I went ahead and a couple of tests (checking for # on terminal, root checker app) and nothing said I had root, so I took another road.

I tried every single rooting method metioned in this post:

• Wug's... results above
• ClockworkMod (both dowloading su.zip into sdcard and adb pushing it)............ everything went accordingly but once rebooted, no root.
• Superboot Method.................Had to do the battery pull (10-15 min had passed and still stuck on Google logo), rebooted but Superuser wouldn't open. I checked and saw it needed an update, I updated it and still no root.
• (Slightly) Easier Manual Method (I actually had to do it again while writing this post b/c I didn't remember my results)....................Had to do a battery pull after 30 min of stuck in google logo after "fastboot boot boot.img". The DOS showed that it "downloaded OK", and "booted OK" aparently, so I went ahead and did the adb steps. After confirming the adb device I put "adb root" and got the following messege: "adbd cannot run as root in production builds". I'm guessing this has to do with the fact that its a soft boot and that I had to battery pull. In my first try I went ahead and sent the rest of the commands but it didn't work probably because it adb root had failed.

After dooing all of that, factory reseted, I re-flashed 4.0.4 and I re-locked. Then I started all over again. Same results.
I also tried re-flahing the recovery Clockwork Mod, nothing. Then I flashed the touch recovery ClockworkMod, very nice but still nothing.

Here is what I think is the problem:
I have Superuser (all methods installed it) 3.0.7 and su binary 3.0.3. Inside the app (settings>> binary *tap to check for updates) it shows me that the binary need to be upgraded to 3.0.3.2, but when I start the upgrade it fails on "Getting root access". I'm assuming that at that point Superuser should prompt me for root access permissions but it never does, ergo fail!
I'm guessing I have to update the su binary for it to work properlly and prompt for root access so I tried installing it in recovery mode. I tried with both versions of ClockworkMod recovery and both showed me "an error ocurred while installing, install aborted". I also tried installing the joint app+binary .zip but same thing.

I'm basicly shooting in the dark at this point so please, any type of help is appreciated.

 

[scary alien]

Miguipigui,

I'm still not sure what's going on with the su.zip files that don't seem to work on the 4.0.4 version of Android for the GSM devices. FWIW, I've used the old su.zip files on the 4.0.4 leak for the VZW version of the phone without issue.

However, I have read / heard that this su.zip should work for you (flashable via ClockworkMod):

xda-developers - View Single Post - 4.0.4 OTA Officially Rolling Out Now (GSM-Yakju Only) Link Inside!

(here's the direct link to that post in that full thread: xda-developers - View Single Post - 4.0.4 OTA Officially Rolling Out Now (GSM-Yakju Only) Link Inside!)

Let me know for sure if this does the trick for you and I'll be sure to update the first post to reflect this.

I'm guessing that you've hit the nail on the head that its really a version of the su binary included in the su.zip files.

Try the above and see if it works for you.

By the way, I'm going to go-ahead and move your other thread from the lounge to over here and I'll reply to it in there, too.

Cheers!

 

[Miguipigui]

Miguipigui,

I'm still not sure what's going on with the su.zip files that don't seem to work on the 4.0.4 version of Android for the GSM devices. FWIW, I've used the old su.zip files on the 4.0.4 leak for the VZW version of the phone without issue.

However, I have read / heard that this su.zip should work for you (flashable via ClockworkMod):

xda-developers - View Single Post - 4.0.4 OTA Officially Rolling Out Now (GSM-Yakju Only) Link Inside!

(here's the direct link to that post in that full thread: xda-developers - View Single Post - 4.0.4 OTA Officially Rolling Out Now (GSM-Yakju Only) Link Inside!)

Let me know for sure if this does the trick for you and I'll be sure to update the first post to reflect this.

I'm guessing that you've hit the nail on the head that its really a version of the su binary included in the su.zip files.

Try the above and see if it works for you.

By the way, I'm going to go-ahead and move your other thread from the lounge to over here and I'll reply to it in there, too.

Cheers!

Thanks for the super-ultra-mega-incredibly fast response! Seriously, do you have any notification app/program/system on your threads or I just got lucky you where signed in?

Anyways, I'm downloading and finishing up a few things here (work) and I'll give it a shot and post my results in a few min.

Thanks again!

 

[scary alien]

Thanks for the super-ultra-mega-incredibly fast response! Seriously, do you have any notification app/program/system on your threads or I just got lucky you where signed in?

Anyways, I'm downloading and finishing up a few things here (work) and I'll give it a shot and post my results in a few min.

Thanks again!

LOL, we have email notification and such (but I am always around--more than I should be, according to my wife ).

Cheers and good luck--let me know (I'm pretty optimistic that this is your issue).

-SA

 

[Miguipigui]

LOL, we have email notification and such (but I am always around--more than I should be, according to my wife ).

Cheers and good luck--let me know (I'm pretty optimistic that this is your issue).

-SA

I'm very happy to say you were right. I downloaded the su.zip, flashed it with the very cool Touch ClockworkMod Recovery and worked perfectly. I now have root!
I tested for root in the terminal and root confirmed. I cheked the binary and it is the current 3.0.2. I was also able to flash recovery in ROM Manager and I'm making my backup as I write. Thanks a million!

 

[scary alien]

I'm very happy to say you were right. I downloaded the su.zip, flashed it with the very cool Touch ClockworkMod Recovery and worked perfectly. I now have root!
I tested for root in the terminal and root confirmed. I cheked the binary and it is the current 3.0.2. I was also able to flash recovery in ROM Manager and I'm making my backup as I write. Thanks a million!

Sweet! Great to hear!

I'll make sure to get the OP updated with the new su.zip download.

There must be something in 4.0.4 for the GSM phones that's not yet in the 4.0.4 for CDMA (leaked version).

By the way, check-out my Android Root Toolkit app if you want (free in the Market). Its got some nice features just for the Galaxy Nexus devices. I'm also planning on an update with new features this weekend.

Cheers!

 

[Miguipigui]

Sweet! Great to hear!

I'll make sure to get the OP updated with the new su.zip download.

There must be something in 4.0.4 for the GSM phones that's not yet in the 4.0.4 for CDMA (leaked version).

By the way, check-out my Android Root Toolkit app if you want (free in the Market). Its got some nice features just for the Galaxy Nexus devices. I'm also planning on an update with new features this weekend.

Cheers!

Thanks! I'll gladly try it out and give any feedback necesary.

 

[ScotK]

Hi All,

I'm trying to manually root (via linux) my 4.0.4 GSM Galaxy Nexus (purchased from Google/Play) and the
adb root
command returns
adbd cannot run as root in production builds

I've tried rebooting several times and did a round of
fastboot oem lock/unlock and no luck.

What do I need to do?

Thanks,

scot

 

[ScotK]

Hi All,

I'm trying to manually root (via linux) my 4.0.4 GSM Galaxy Nexus (purchased from Google/Play) and the
adb root
command returns
adbd cannot run as root in production builds

I've tried rebooting several times and did a round of
fastboot oem lock/unlock and no luck.

What do I need to do?

Thanks,

scot

Curious,
I went back to bootloader mode and did a
fastboot boot boot.img
then it appeared to get "stuck" at the google screen, but I went
ahead and tried the adb root and other commands and they worked.

When I rebooted, I had the superuser app, but it doesn't appear to have root permission....
So, something is still missing.

All right - got it.
I downloaded 3.0.3.2 of su from
http://androidsu.com/superuser/

used
adb push su /sdcard
adb shell
% su
# cd /sdcard
# mount -o remount,rw /mtdblock3 /system
# busybox cp su /system/bin/su2
# cd /system/bin
# rm su
# mv su2 su
# chmod 06755 su
# exit
adb reboot

and now superuser works!


scot

 

[PhinPhin]

Hey ScaryAlien, I again must ask you a question: my phone kept complaining about a new OTA-update to 4.0.4 and I tried to install it, but the installation failed, though I thought I just lose the root-function.

Since I'm still on 4.0.2... how I install the update now? And where I can download it? These? https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/drivers#maguroimm76d

I'm totally lost now

 

[scary alien]

Hey ScaryAlien, I again must ask you a question: my phone kept complaining about a new OTA-update to 4.0.4 and I tried to install it, but the installation failed, though I thought I just lose the root-function.

Since I'm still on 4.0.2... how I install the update now? And where I can download it? These? https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/drivers#maguroimm76d

I'm totally lost now

PhinPhin, have you installed a custom recovery and/or frozen (disabled) / renamed / deleted any system applications?

Any of the above will cause an OTA to not be able to install.

I don't know what those files are in the link you provided (looks like driver files?).

 

[PhinPhin]

PhinPhin, have you installed a custom recovery and/or frozen (disabled) / renamed / deleted any system applications?

Any of the above will cause an OTA to not be able to install.

I don't know what those files are in the link you provided (looks like driver files?).

Not that I would know, I only used your root-method, wich installs superroot?
Everything else was still the stock-rom

And the link was a google-search for a download... first hit... if it's only a driverpackage I obviosly haven't found it

Wasn't there a way to install the update while keeping the root?