S7-931w - Failed to update modem - S7-931u

So I'm the owner of the infamous MediaPad 7 Lite [WiFi only] or S7-931w and there is hacking challenge ahead.

As Huawei rarely updates FW for S7-931w and original FW is buggy, I decided to experiment in some way: I put S7-931u FW on S7-931w tablet.
That should work perfectly as both tablets are same by hardware, except that S7-931u have 3G modem.
So after flashing and tablet boot, everything is perfect but there is annoying message on the screen: "Failed to update modem" that will sit on the screen and not go away.



Now, I seeking for a way to remove that message. As I'm not very experienced android developer, I have no idea how to remove it. Maybe to remove modem driver? Or some modifications on firmware before flashing?

I would like to stay on this firmware as it's seems to be more stable and faster than one for S7-931w.


Thanks in advance.

prometej-zg said:

Well I'm not sure that removing modem driver is an easy task.. because the firmware of this tablet is a real mess - but you can try.. because you said you are experimenting. That probably includes rooting of the device, and/or maybe even custom ROM-ing

I own S7-931U with SP19 firmware version and it is not stable at all - at least on my tablet

Wifi version that you have has only reached SP01 version as you can see on this link.
But if you really want to experiment (and don't mind translating from russian) do check 4PDA forum.. they also have some stuff for MediaPad 7 Lite tablets.

Good luck.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

It's already rooted. But I do not have experience with removing drivers on android, so yes, it will be tricky.

Ohh I see that you are also from Croatia, that explains why we both have MediaPad 7 Lite. This tablet is pure crap, but for basic task can be a bit frustrating because of it's "awesome speed". Maybe it can be less useless with better firmware.

I'll check that Russian stuff, it may help.

EDIT: I checked but I don't see anything useful. I would like to know how to edit Huawei firmware by my self like Russian guy did. I managed to open update.app with 7-zip and check all 3 archives (931U.zip, 932U.zip, 933U.zip) contained in it.
Each archive contains 2 files:
- MOBILE_CONNECT.BIN
- UpdateWizard (No extension) - File seems to be an ELF file determined by header.

I have no idea how I should edit anything of that.
This firmware is become open source but I don't know how to edit it either.

I would appreciate if someone can explain me or provide me some tutorial for such, If I get involved and done something, I'll publish it so others may also enjoy the benefits.

prometej-zg said:

Well most of us got this tablet for an "T-Contract"

I don't have enough experience with customizing ROM-s, so I'm not much of a help, but here are two links which may help you disassemble original ROM.

[GUIDE] How to extract Huawei firmware (update.app)
[TOOL] Huawei Update Extractor [UPDATED: v0.9.8.0]

App on the second link is a believe easier to setup if you are on windows platform.

Btw.. you are probably on your own on this experiment, because I've search for some answers on the subject of this tablet, and got none (even nothing from Huawei!)... That is why a gave up trying.. Only thing I've seen new is open source stuff on Huawei pages.
I guess people (or even worse Huawei) are just not interested to create something better for this tablet.

At least some users on this forum and Freaktab.com, helped with rooting and TWRP custom recovery... I can only thank them for their effort

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Yeah "T-Contract", as 80% of Croats, me included.


But you helped me a lot, you bring me things I didn't even known that are exist for this tablet.
If I make some success, I'll post about it.


And yes, Huawei have NO interest for it - They even removed S7-931w support from their site - SHAME.
It's a bad tablet, slow and as you said with messy firmware, that's probable reason why almost nobody works on it, or maybe nobody have enough courage to challenge Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite? Who knows

Some update, I used extractor to extract the firmware, after extraction I extracted system.img and under bin directory found guilty script:
modem_update

The problem is that this script is probably called by another, so how to stop that chain....

As I see by viewing the log you shared, it even creates special "modem" partition.
This maybe even complicates the things, maybe I could change creating modem partition.
As experimenting with Android partitions is never good idea, I need to be extremely careful as there is possibility of bricking device.

Do you maybe know where I can find script which handles installation process?

Okay, I'll look into it when I got some time, and I'll keep updated.

Success!

After a while, I finally managed to get some time and will to work on our poor S7-931w, and I comming with a good news!
I finally managed to remove permanent "Failed to update modem" message.

Message is caused by system application HuaweiInit.apk which I found safe to remove after message appears, as after removal there is no annoying message nor bugs.
Also, now all telephony apps could be removed since S7-931w doesn't have any way to use it.
Now we can have S7-931u firmware on our S7-931w. For me, it seems that u firmware is more responsive.
Using S7-931u firmware also brings back USB Mass storage mode which was removed in latest S7-931w firmware.

However, it's still a lot of thing to done, there is annoying empty(gray) GSM signal icon next to the battery, and we should do something more serious with it like optimizing it.
Later I'll post brief tutorial, and maybe release modded S7-931u rom for S7-931w.