[Q] Wanting to upgrade firmware

spotopolis said:

Im still running the Whompasaurs rom. Its such a good rom I haven't ever been able to get away from it. Now that 4.4.2 is getting more TW roms, I had a few questions.

Im getting great performance from my Whomp rom, is the TW 4.4.2 roms any faster, or do they eat up more resources and are generally slower?

The only thing that's making me nervous about just doing it is the upgrade process. It sounds like unrooting to stock and taking the official sprint OTA to 4.4.2 is better for the phone, but I don't want any of that Knox crap on there. Can I just Oden to a custom 4.4.2? It looks like I can, but then I will need to flash the WiFi fix, correct? I see the info out there, but everywhere I have seen some of it mentioned, its kind of scattered throughout a few post or in different threads. I was kind of hoping to get an all in one answer so I didn't have any doubts or questions.

I use to be a heavy flasher, but once I got on Whomp, I haven't really been around much and I am kinda rusty. I don't have another phone to fall back on and want to make sure I'm not going to brick it.

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Well you can jump to custom 4.4.2 without upgrading. First you need to backup your internal sdcard because it needs to be wiped for best results. In 4.4.2 the directory structure is changed and without wiping you will end up with two internal sdcard directories (one you wont see but it will take up a bunch of your space). As far as speed things will be just as fast on 4.4.2 unlike the crappy 4.3 we had before.

Needed files
1. Philz 6.07.9 recovery or cwm (twrp will not work)
2. Wifi fix for 4.3/4.4.2
3. Custom 4.4.2 rom

Steps
1. Connect to pc and backup internal sdcard
2. Flash philz (done with odin or in recovery)
3. Boot philz and backup current rom (backup to external sdcard because internal will soon be wiped)
4. Factory reset clean for new rom
5. Under mounts choose format /data and data/media
6. Reboot your recovery (very important) this will make philz create it needed directories (it will ask if you want to root ignore it)
7. After reboot flash your custom rom
8. Boot into download mode
9. Odin wifi fix

Phone will reboot automatically after wifi fix is flashed. Now you setup your rom. I suggest that you do not use a backup app to restore any apps or data. Download everything you can fresh from playstore. Many apps and their data has changed since 4.1.2 and will lead to major issues if restored.


Now one thing about custom 4.4.2 roms. They all have the S5 dialer which has a lag on first call after boot. If you place a call (to voicemail is fine) after every boot you wont have any problems till you reboot.


Sent from my SPH-L900 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

spotopolis said:

I have 4.4.2 Stock Rooted with Knox removed. I keep downloading your wifi patch, but everytime I try to load it into odin, it says the binary is invalid. any ideas?

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You are using pc odin and not mobile odin? Also try odin 1.85 or 3.07. Also you might have a bad download.

Sent from my SPH-L900 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

spotopolis said:

I tried 307 and 309. Downloaded on phone the transferred to pc, no good. Tried downloading patch on pc from several different mirrors, no good, tried on laptop on WiFi, no good. They all give the invalid binary error. Tried running Odin in admin and without. I'm on win 8.1 x64. Have the Samsung USB drivers installed. No keis.

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Try this file http://d-h.st/6qX you will need to extract the rar file before you flash it.

Sent from my SPH-L900 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

spotopolis said:

That worked perfectly and I am up and running! Thank you for all your help :highfive:

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Cool. Now enjoy the new NE2 rom out there. FYI you can run any rom (tw 4.1-4.4.2 and aosp 4.1-4.4.4) without any changes. Only thing you should do is wipe your internal sdcard (in philz go to mounts.. format /data /data/media) when you flash a new rom and this will keep you from have some weird issues (also backup your internal data such as pics, vids, etc.. before you format).