[Q] HTC One M8 GPE won't boot to custom recovery

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scbash

Member
Jan 1, 2011
19
0
Boston
Hi all-

I just received my HTC One M8 Google Play Edition today. I successfully unlocked the bootloader (I see the open padlock every time it boots), but I'm running into trouble with TWRP. I downloaded TWRP 2.7.0.3 from this thread. Since I'd like to get OTA updates in the future, I am attempting to boot (not flash!) TWRP using
Code:
$ ./adb reboot bootloader
$ ./fastboot boot ~/Downloads/openrecovery-twrp-2.7.0.3-m8_ul_ca.img
downloading 'boot.img'...
OKAY [  1.251s]
booting...
OKAY [  0.001s]
finished. total time: 1.252s
$
but after the second command, the phone just reboots to the normal system. I have attempted renaming TWRP to recovery.img, but that didn't change the behavior. I have tried a factory reset, and that didn't change the behavior. If I attempt to manually enter recovery from HBoot, I get the dead android logo.

I really just want to flash SuperSU.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Stephen
 

Tikerz

Senior Member
Nov 5, 2005
2,839
654
Mesa, AZ
TWRP doesn't work on GPe for some reason. Use Philz CWM.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
 

scbash

Member
Jan 1, 2011
19
0
Boston
A little concerned that I wasn't able to boot either TWRP or CWM, and (while I don't think I'd flashed anything) just going into HBoot and selecting recovery also didn't work (dead Android icon), I grabbed the 4.4.2 firmware from here and flashed the stock recovery.

After flashing the stock recovery I had the *TAMPERED* label in HBoot (which surprised me a little because I assumed stock would 100% match what was already there). Now if I selected Recovery from HBoot I would get a temporary flash of "This image is for development use only (etc.)..." and then end up back in HBoot. I tried once or twice more to just boot CWM and still no luck. So finally I flashed CWM, installed SuperSU, and then flashed back to stock. I guess I'll find out when the first OTA rolls around if the system is still "stock" enough.

Thanks,
Stephen
 

suprtrukr425

Senior Member
Feb 26, 2010
144
52
Virginia
Hi all-

I just received my HTC One M8 Google Play Edition today. I successfully unlocked the bootloader (I see the open padlock every time it boots), but I'm running into trouble with TWRP. I downloaded TWRP 2.7.0.3 from this thread. Since I'd like to get OTA updates in the future, I am attempting to boot (not flash!) TWRP using
Code:
$ ./adb reboot bootloader
$ ./fastboot boot ~/Downloads/openrecovery-twrp-2.7.0.3-m8_ul_ca.img
downloading 'boot.img'...
OKAY [  1.251s]
booting...
OKAY [  0.001s]
finished. total time: 1.252s
$
but after the second command, the phone just reboots to the normal system. I have attempted renaming TWRP to recovery.img, but that didn't change the behavior. I have tried a factory reset, and that didn't change the behavior. If I attempt to manually enter recovery from HBoot, I get the dead android logo.

I really just want to flash SuperSU.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Stephen

I might be wrong, but isn't the command "fastboot boot recovery recovery.img" whereas "recovery.img" would be the path to the recovery you want to boot to without flashing? If I'm not mistaken, "fastboot boot" would boot the phone up to the system.
 

scbash

Member
Jan 1, 2011
19
0
Boston
I might be wrong, but isn't the command "fastboot boot recovery recovery.img" whereas "recovery.img" would be the path to the recovery you want to boot to without flashing? If I'm not mistaken, "fastboot boot" would boot the phone up to the system.
When I did it with my wife's Nexus 5, it was "fastboot boot <image>" (and there it worked without a hitch). In the middle of other things last night I did try that and got "no such file: recovery". So I'm still open to user error, but at least that particular change didn't fix my problem...

Thanks,
Stephen
 

rbouza1

Senior Member
May 16, 2013
691
161
Google Pixel 6
When I did it with my wife's Nexus 5, it was "fastboot boot <image>" (and there it worked without a hitch). In the middle of other things last night I did try that and got "no such file: recovery". So I'm still open to user error, but at least that particular change didn't fix my problem...

Thanks,
Stephen

download the stock revovery listed here (in development).install cwm, root, and redo your stock recovery via fastboot
 

SaHiLzZ

Senior Member
Jan 19, 2011
2,000
516
Fastboot boot stopped working on One m7 since 3.x. I'm assuming they continued the trend..

sent from my mobile device
 
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graffixnyc

Retired Forum Mod / Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 21, 2011
6,627
6,486
New York City
www.graffixnyc.com
Unfortunately non of the recoveries available will "boot" into recovery. Philz works if you flash the recovery. I would say flash philz recovery and then flash back the stock GPE recovery I posted in Dev
 
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suprtrukr425

Senior Member
Feb 26, 2010
144
52
Virginia
When I did it with my wife's Nexus 5, it was "fastboot boot <image>" (and there it worked without a hitch). In the middle of other things last night I did try that and got "no such file: recovery". So I'm still open to user error, but at least that particular change didn't fix my problem...

Thanks,
Stephen

Yep, found out I was wrong when I went to do it myself. After some research, it seems the code used to include the extra "recovery", but no longer does.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
 

graffixnyc

Retired Forum Mod / Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 21, 2011
6,627
6,486
New York City
www.graffixnyc.com
Fastboot boot stopped working on One m7 since 3.x. I'm assuming they continued the trend..

sent from my mobile device

fastboot boot didn't work on the m7. It works on the m8 I have tested it and I used an unreleased recovery to boot the recovery to pull the stock recovery from the GPE. You can boot the recoveries on sense based roms but for the GPE edition one the ones for Sense aren't booting. the dt.img's are different between the two devices.
 

scbash

Member
Jan 1, 2011
19
0
Boston
fastboot boot didn't work on the m7. It works on the m8 I have tested it and I used an unreleased recovery to boot the recovery to pull the stock recovery from the GPE. You can boot the recoveries on sense based roms but for the GPE edition one the ones for Sense aren't booting. the dt.img's are different between the two devices.

Since booting rather than flashing is my preferred workflow, do you know if the "unreleased recovery" you used is planned to be released? I've already flashed Philz and flashed back, but for future use it would be convenient.

Thanks,
Stephen
 

erythrophilia

Member
Jan 20, 2011
14
0
USA
Just had the same problem like yours but the latest CWM 6.0.4.8 works for me.
  • I got touch CWM from here
  • The superuser.zip file from here
    Both are made by clockworkmod

Commands
Code:
adb reboot bootloader
fastboot boot recovery-clockwork-touch-6.0.4.8-m8.img
Once I got in the temporary CWM recovery, I backed up the entire system to sdcard. I pulled out the stock recovery image file (24MB in size) in case I need it for OTA in the future.
Then flash the superuser.zip and reboot back to the vanilla android. Stock recovery and everything else was untouched and we got rooted.
 
Last edited:

scbash

Member
Jan 1, 2011
19
0
Boston
Just had the same problem like yours but the latest CWM 6.0.4.8 works for me.

After the 4.4.4 OTA update, I was also able to boot (not flash) Philz recovery to reroot my phone.

Long version in case it's helpful to someone else in the future: I think either my phone shipped with corrupt firmware or I somehow corrupted it while unlocking the bootloader originally, and then I made matters worse by flashing back to a "stock" firmware that didn't exactly match the shipped M8 GPE recovery. Turned out that with that bad "stock" firmware the 4.4.3 OTA failed to apply, so to make the 4.4.3 OTA work I had to flash the 1.16.1700.16 firmware from this thread. After the 4.4.3 update ./fastboot boot <custom-recovery> still didn't work, so I did the flash custom/root/flash stock cycle. Then a week later the 4.4.4 update rolled through without incident, and suddenly ./fastboot boot <custom-recovery> worked fine.

Thanks,
Stephen
 

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    Fastboot boot stopped working on One m7 since 3.x. I'm assuming they continued the trend..

    sent from my mobile device
    1
    Unfortunately non of the recoveries available will "boot" into recovery. Philz works if you flash the recovery. I would say flash philz recovery and then flash back the stock GPE recovery I posted in Dev