[Q] State of root access, 4.3

Hey all,

I just wanted to pose a few questions. I've spent about 20 hours going through forums and articles to root my Verizon HTC One, and a heck of a lot of the information out there is very dated, and often contradictory. I've tried condensing it into a single procedure, but am having problems.

Here's the procedure for a brand new phone straight from a verizon store yesterday, running Android 4.3, with hboot 2.55, as I understand it; the information that I believe is now out of date, wrong, or not for 4.3/ 2.55; and the problem(s) I'm running into:

Procedure:

1) Unlock the bootloader and get s-off -- Firewater should be able to do this using the temproot method

2) Flash recovery mod, I was going to use CWM since it worked so nicely on my Incredible for 4 years -- this requires an unlocked bootloader and s-off, done the standard way via fastboot

3) Use CWM to flash superuser in recovery -- push the zip to sd, flash it from recovery

4) Happy times with my old set up back

Misinformation:

1) HTCdev -- no longer allowed for HTC One by Verizon, can't unlock bootloader this way. Renders a lot of the threads irrelevant now that this is not a valid route

2) rumrunner -- works for Android 2.2.4, not 2.3, and up to hboot 2.54

3) firewater "standard method" -- useless to anyone attempting to root a new device for the first time

4) "flash ARHD, then run firewater" -- again, not useful if you're trying to get CWM and SU on your phone for the first time

Problems:

1) The big one. Running temproot/ firewater, I acquire root access after running temproot, but when I run firewater after I get

!!If firewater hangs for more than 2 minutes or device enters qhusb mode, hold power for 60 seconds !!
preparing, one moment
The first bottle is open
chugging..........
C:\adb>

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Click to collapse

with the adb shell crashing out, and my phone will freeze, requiring a hard reboot.

2) I got a few suggestions to use rumrunner (before I decided rumrunner was 2.2.4, from the sources I could find). The process would be going fairly smoothily, until it would crash with the error "looks like device is not rooted AND lacks an unsecure kernel. su or FU!!" I also once got an error about "unexpected process or ROM" but haven't been able to replicate it.

3) Found some advice for "flashing CWM without s-off"...that obviously didn't work, but I thought I might as well try

4) Not so much a problem as a concern...I'm a bit worried about my drivers. I think they are good and up to date, I got them from HTCsync, and have full adb and fastboot control to my device, but still...


The Jury

So, what's your take? Am I missing something obvious?

Update

atewsleybooth said:

So, what's your take? Am I missing something obvious?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Update

I tried going through the firewater procedure on OSX instead of Windows, with the exact same results (crashing out of adb shell). This leads me to believe that the problem is with the device, and not the computer. Does that sound right?

I switched cables, got one instance where I actually received "somebody pissed in the firewater reboot and try again." However, 2 reboots since with the same cable and port have both gone back to crashing out of the shell.

Gizmoe said:

Rumrunnwr is only for 4.2.2. Firewater is for 4.3. You need to be complete stock and follow temproot method. Firewater was written for multiple devices so the whole HTC dev unlock and other methods won't work for the m7vzw. If you are on 4.4.2 then you are sol for now.

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Click to collapse

I'm on full stock 4.3 device, running firewater using the temproot. I've made sure not to got to 4.4.2.

cmlusco said:

Try redownloading the firewater file, mabey it was a bad download, or got corrupted somewhere along the way. If thays not the issue try below.

You shouldnt have to do this but its worth a shot. Once you aquire temp root, try pushing the su binary to /system/xbin, and the superuser.apk to /system/app. Then reboot the phone. This should technically give you root. Then try running firewater again to unlock and get s-off.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

I got it working. What I wound up doing was saying "No" to the first prompt from firewater, then restarting firewater, and saying "Yes." Twice this gave me "somebody pissed in the firewater," but on the third try, it went through. Not initiating firewater twice and canceling out of the first run would always crash my shell.

Go figure.