As many of you already know, with our recent official Jelly Bean release came a new, updated flash counter. With ICS we were able to either just root via the root66 method and not trip the counter, or we could just use Chainfire's Triangle Away app to reset it. This is no longer the case. Now, with JB, unless our firmware meets a very strict set of conditions, it will trip the counter every time you reboot the device. If you simply just flash the root66 firmware, and do nothing else beyond that, you will not raise your count. But then, whats the point of rooting???
DON'T PANIC!
We can still zero it out for Warranty returns! The biggest issues arise when you want to utilize certain apps and/or services such as All Share Cast, Media Hub and other Samsung apps. For example, if you have purchased the $100 equipment, the All Share Cast Hub, it will not work! Additionally, DRM protected content may not play anymore. (Probably just applies to DRM protected media you got from Samsung, but this needs verification). For example, if you got to download the Avengers a couple of months ago, it will not play, even though it is perfectly legal to do so!
So are we able to get around this? Yes and No, for the moment. There are at least 2 separate detections going on. One is done post-boot, using the SysScope app. If you remove this from /system/app/ you will be able to install a custom recovery, and probably also a kernel and another modem without tripping the counter! I have yet to see any negative side effects from removing this app, so until I find more info proving otherwise, I suggest backing it up and deleting it. Hopefully Chainfire will decide to update Triangle Away to counter the updated detection. He may not though. Please read what he has to say about it here.
This does not solve the whole problem though. There is still another method Samsung coded in to detect if your system has been modified. I am not sure yet what is responsible fot this. But if you were to simply deodex your rom, it will begin tripping the counter at boot again! (It may not be the deodexing that is trigging it though, I believe it is also scanning for any processes that are running with root privledges that should not be there, and it may also have to do with busybox). Either way, if you are running pretty much any kind of custom rom, it will retrip the counter at bootup. This method is different in that it happens during boot, not after, and it does not look at recovery, and probably not at kernel or modem either. It appears to look specifically at the system partition for anything not stock. I am trying to narrow this down.
Because the other 2nd part seems to happen during bootup, I think that Chainfire's paid version may be able to help here. If you purchase it on the Play Store, it will have enabled the ability to Auto run at boot. Since SysScope is now removed, I dont think any detections are running post-boot anymore, meaning Auto run from Triangle Away should work. I do not have the paid version to test with right now. But I will try and test this soon.
I am fairly certain that the rest of the detection process is running either from the kernel, or from a completely separate partition. It is going to require quite a few flashes and test to narrow it down for sure. So if you guys will report your experiences with it, particularly on different kernels, I would be greatly appreciative.
As I find and/or remember more about this, I will update it here. If anyone has any other information about this, please do post it here! Any help, tips, info, etc that you can provide can be very helpful!
I hope this all made sense to you guys! I will go back and clarify some stuff a little later, but Ive got a 6 year old kid going stir crazy waiting on me to be done with this! I wanted to go ahead and get something up though to get the conversation started! I will also post some links to some information later on.
In the meantime, you can Odin back to ICS build UVALJ4, and then flash your roms from there...yes even the JB ones! I hate saying that after suggesting to Odin flash the JB update, but if you have anything not working because of this, it may be your best option temporarily.
Otherwise, delete SysScope from /system/app! And keep Triangle Away handy!
I will continue doing a lot of testing and trying to investigate this problem. But I do appreciate any help that you guys can give!
Hopefully, with a little luck we can figure this out! :highfive:
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