Root Unable to get S-OFF (K2_UL) with Moonshine or Rumrunner

[editorsean]

I have a HTC One SV (K2_UL) that's just over a year old and already have it rooted with SuperSU (2.02) and have TWRP 2.7.0.1 as the recovery. It has the stock HTC JB 4.2.2 ROM and HBOOT 2.00.000. I have SuperSU set to automatically grant to everything while trying each process.

I've probably spent about 10 hours over several nights trying pretty much every method I came across (and could think of) to get S-OFF, but without success. HBOOT still shows 'S-ON', so I figure it's time to post something.

My PC has the latest HTC drivers and I've never had HTC sense installed. USB debugging tools is enabled.

The following covers roughly what I tried so far:

Moonshine - Each time I tried this, it would get as far as step #2 and give an ADB error message. I repeated 5 times and it failed at that point every time.

Rumrunner - This one seemed to go a little further and then fails with a Fatal error asking me to download the latest Rumrunner update. I already have version 0.5.

I tried Rumrunner on another Windows 7 based PC with a fairly clean Windows installation and ended up with the same error.

To rule out Windows or a possible ADB/Fastboot driver issue, I downloaded Ubuntu 14.04.1, burned it to DVD and booted it. I installed the ADB/Fastboot package and then downloaded and ran the Linux version of Rumrunner 0.5. It also failed with a fatal error asking me to download the latest version.

I also tried Rumrunner with ClockworkMod as the recovery, but the same result.

Moonshine (with ClockworkMod) - Just in case Moonshine needed an older recovery, I tried it again with ClockworkMod flashed as the recovery. I wish I hadn't! I was up to to 3am trying to unbrick my phone.

When I ran Moonshine, it went through stages #1 and #2. After it counted to '60' in stage #2, it said something cheeky like "Fix it! Yes, you fix it!", with the white HTC developer logo screen. The power button did nothing. I tried 'adb reboot' from the command, but just got the same developer logo screen. Even taking out and reinstalling the battery still showed up that screen.

So with the phone stuck on that HTC developer screen, I tried running Moonshine once more for curiosity. This time it spent about 30 minutes going through 10 stages of "Moonshinng" and then threw up a weird error like "Don't shine and drive!".

With the phone still stick on the developer logo screen, I tried Moonshine yet again and it went through all 3 stages with the same resulting "Don't shine and drive!" error in the end.

Finally, after a fair amount of searching and getting nowhere online, I tried flashing a stock bootloader for my model (K2_UL) and this time the phone got stuck on the normal HTC boot logo screen. Finally (at about 3am), I happen to notice a 'boot_backup.img' in the Moonshine directory which I assume it created during the unsuccessful 'Moonshining' and flashed that as the boot and my phone fully booted back up at last. Phew!

Firewater - I tried Firewater, but that also failed with a "Sorry, it didn't work out" error.

If there are any other suggestions, I would really appreciate it.

The following are the HBOOT screen details, in case anyone is curious:
*** Tampered ***
*** UNLOCKED ***
K2_UL PVT SHIP S-ON RL
HBOOT-2.00.0000
RADIO-1.18.40A.00.05
OpenDSP-v13.2.0268.0620
eMMC-boot
Mar 14 2013,22:10:43:-1

I never had a third party ROM installed. It has Jellybean 4.2.2, which was the last OTA update.

 

[editorsean]

My phone is finally S-OFF!

Big thanks to BHoller for the suggestion in this post to uninstall the Google drivers package.

That's all I did, then plugged my phone back in, ran Rumrunner and it completed with my phone at the HBOOT screen showing 'S-OFF'.

On the other hand, I still wonder why it didn't work when I tried the Live 32-bit Ubuntu DVD or even the second PC where I didn't install the Google drivers. But then again, I'm more than happy that I've got past this road block.

After a little more reading today, I did find out that Fastboot on my phone (and may other Android phones) is not Windows 8.1 compatible. On two Windows 8.1 PCs I tried, Windows would show "Unrecognized USB Device" and a "This device cannot start" with a Code 10 in the device manger. The work around is quite messy, i.e. replacing Windows 8.1 USB driver files with those from Windows 8.0, but I wasn't going to start doing that, particularly since my keyboard and mouse are USB connected.

As for my next phone, ... well let's just say that it will probably not be HTC...