[HELP THREAD] Samsung Galaxy S4 T Mobile Version | Ask ANY Question | Noob Friendly

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Skipjacks

Senior Member
Nov 1, 2011
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help.png

Hello T Mobile Galaxy S4 users! I've taken this thread idea from Marlybru, one of the most helpful Recognized Contributors on XDA, who got the idea from Undercover, just to give proper credit where it is due.

The HTC Sensation has had an ongoing Noob Help thread for more than a year now and it's been an invaluable resource to people of all skills levels looking for answers to questions that might get flamed if asked anywhere else.


There are a lot of people joining XDA on daily basis, and there are a lot of repetitive questions being asked which fill up Development Threads and the main Q&A Forum. Post those questions here!.

First things first. I strongly advise you to read this thread before posting ANYTHING ANYWHERE on XDA.

Second
The SEARCH button is your best friend. It will go to war with you. It will tuck you in at night. It lives to serve you! Use it! Almost any question you can think up has already been answered on XDA. Before posting in threads see if the Search Button will fine the answer for you. If you can't find the answer or if you don't understand the answer, then come here and the community will do all it can to help you figure it out.

Third. Re-read the Second thing. This cannot be stressed enough.

Fourth. Don't just come here to ask questions. Come back to help others! In a fairly short time many of you who come to this thread to ask super noobie questions will start to get pretty proficient at Android modding. Please keep coming back to this thread to help the next wave of rookies that are coming after you. Remember, you needed your hand held once, pay it forward by holding someone else's hand.

ASK ANY QUESTION HERE
Odin, ROM's, rooting help etc...... you will either get an answer or will get pointed in the right direction.


Please, be aware of the model of your phone when asking questions.

This thread and this entire forum deals with the T Mobile Variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 model SSGH - M919.

Other Samsung Galaxy S4 Variants



No abuse towards noobs or silly questions is tolerated here!

There is no such thing as a dumb question in this thread. If you need to ask how to take the back cover off your phone or how to wipe cache, feel free to ask it here. All questions are welcome.

If you engage in noob bashing here because someone asked a simple question I will search your post history and find the posts you made when you first signed up here about which button turns your phone on and post them here for everyone to laugh at. (By the way, go take a look at my rookie posts. There are some doozies.)

Everyone was new here once,so Noobs New users, please take the time to familiarize yourselves with how things work in the forum by reading this helpful guide. I linked this above, but it's such a great guide on how to be a great XDA Community Member that it's worth linking it twice.

As development continues and we start seeing patterns of repeat questions I'll link answers to the most common questions here in the first couple posts of the thread. So keep an eye out for those updates over the next several months.
 
Last edited:

Skipjacks

Senior Member
Nov 1, 2011
5,416
4,329
Baltimore
Some of the most common questions....

What is the difference between the S4 Development Forum and the S4 Original Development Forum?
The regular development forum is for ROMs based on Samsung's Touchwiz version of Android
The original development forum is for AOSP or other based non Touchwiz ROMs, recoveries, and such

What is Odin?
Odin is a program that lets you flash things to a Samsung mobile device from a PC. It's an invaluable part of modding Samsung devices.
Here is a guide by k0nana about how to use Odin. You can find download links for the software there as well as a few other things.

If you need a little more detail on how to use Odin this is a more detailed write up by Intratech explaining how to use it. (Note, do not download and try to install anything from this thread. That is a thread with GS3 files. If you try to put those on your GS4 you will not be happy. This thread is for information on Odin ONLY!)

How do I root my Galaxy S4?
CF-Auto Root by Chainfire

What ROMs are there for the T Mobile GS4?

Here's a big list of them with links all organized in one place. Thanks to MT3G.

What recoveries are available for the T Mobile SGS4?
ClockworkMod
TWRP
PhilZTouch
OUDHS

What are all these installed apps on the stock ROM that I don't know anything about?
That could be bloatware. Stuff T Mobile and Samsung put on there for a variety of reasons. See this list by Xologist explaining what all those APK's are.

How come my 16GB phone says I have only 5GB available even though I just flashed a fresh ROM?

First off, you never had 16GB free. That's the total memory on the device. That includes the space for the ROM, recovery, bootloader, system files, data, and then what's left over is your user partition which is abou 11GB for you to put photos and music on.

But if you make a nandroid backup using Clockwork Mod Recovery it saves the backup in a hidden directory that uses up a lot of space. (About 1 GB for an AOSP backup and 2 or 3GB for a TouchWiz backup). You can use the CWM Recovery App to find and upload the backup to your computer over Wifi for safe storage. Or you can just delete he backup if you no longer need it.

I bought a phone off Craigslist and the IMEI is bad!

You learned a valuable lesson. Don't buy phones off Craigslist. And don't try to change your IMEI. It is illegal to do so. And don't ask XDA how to change it because we can't discuss that here.

However, if you haven't bought you used phone yet and you are worried about it having a bad IMEI, have the seller meet you at a T Mobile store and get the sales rep to verify its a clean phone with no outstanding payment due and that the IMEI won't be blocked in the future. Just be sure that YOU pick the store to meet at. Don't let the seller pick the store in case he has a T Mobile rep working with him.


THESE POSTS / ARTICLES SHOULD BE CONSIDERED REQUIRED READING FOR ALL NEW ANDROID USERS!!!

http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile...plained-boot-system-recovery-data-cache-misc/This is a great write up of how Android is organized under the hood. This is invaluable knowledge to help you get better not just at modding your phone, but for really understanding wha you're doing.

This post by The TechnoCrat explains what most of the common words and phrases you will hear around XDA mean. Things like 'Kernel' and 'Clock Speed' and 'Governors'. If you don't know what terms like that mean, do yourself a favor and read this post. It is like the Rosetta Stone to understanding 95% of threads on XDA.

Another great post by Technocrat that explains the difference between the various available governors.
 
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Skipjacks

Senior Member
Nov 1, 2011
5,416
4,329
Baltimore
And also reserved so I can add lots of FAQ stuff here later.

Bookmark the post now, so you can say you did it before it was cool. :D
 

Peopie

Member
Feb 21, 2013
8
0
San Diego
Hello!

I've had this problem for a while, and haven't been able to fix it because of school, but now that I have time, I wanted to fix it
I tried too root my s4, and I got it to work, and everything works fine, except the storage seems to be broken.

It says that there is only 400 MB of available space, but it has a total space of about 10 GB, most of which is still unused, and I can't install anymore apps or stuff, because it complains about not being enough space, even though it has at least 400 MB left


fwjm2RV.png


Any help would be appreciated :D
 

Skipjacks

Senior Member
Nov 1, 2011
5,416
4,329
Baltimore
Hello!

I've had this problem for a while, and haven't been able to fix it because of school, but now that I have time, I wanted to fix it
I tried too root my s4, and I got it to work, and everything works fine, except the storage seems to be broken.

It says that there is only 400 MB of available space, but it has a total space of about 10 GB, most of which is still unused, and I can't install anymore apps or stuff, because it complains about not being enough space, even though it has at least 400 MB left

Any help would be appreciated :D

Have you by chance made more than 1 backup using ClockworkMod?

I don't know that this is your answer issue, but I've seen something very similar on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 series of tablets.

What was happening was that ClockworkMod recovery was backing up everything on internal storage including user data that was on teh SD Card parition of internal storage. So the backups were like 4GB intead of 1GB. This was happening because CWM was originally written for phones that had like 1GB or less of internal storage and it was made to back up everything on internal storage, not just on the system and data paritions.

Then the problem compounded itself on later backups because CWM stores it's backups in the internal memory partition. So for the second backup it would backup the entire contents of the internal memory again so the backup would be another 4GB, and this time it would also include the last backup, which was like 4GB alone. So the total backup size was 8GB instead of the 1GB it was supposed to be.

And the best part was the the backups were being hidden on the internal partition like CWM likes to do now so they were taking up a ton of space but weren't showing up as used space on the internal storage graphs.

That problem got fixed by the ClockworkMod team for the Galaxy Tab 2 series of tablets so I assume they addressed it on the recovery for all devices. But maybe you are still seeing a similar issue on your GS4.

You should be able to check if this is the problem by going to the ClockworkMod app and looking at your backups. Try deleting one of them (copy it to a PC or to the EXT SD Card if you don't want to lose it) and then see if your available internal memory goes way up afterwards.

If the problem isn't CWM (Or if you're not using CWM), I'd bet it's still something similar, where you have very large files that aren't being reported to the graph in settings. Try copying the entire contents of the SD Card to either an external SD card or to a PC just so you dont' lose anything. Then boot to recovery and format the data partition, which is the internal SD card. See if you have 10GB again, and then copy all your files back. (Look at them on the PC first and make sure there isn't a 6GB file in there somewhere)
 
Last edited:

Peopie

Member
Feb 21, 2013
8
0
San Diego
Have you by chance made more than 1 backup using ClockworkMod?

I don't know that this is your answer issue, but I've seen something very similar on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 series of tablets.

What was happening was that ClockworkMod recovery was backing up everything on internal storage including user data that was on teh SD Card parition of internal storage. So the backups were like 4GB intead of 1GB. This was happening because CWM was originally written for phones that had like 1GB or less of internal storage and it was made to back up everything on internal storage, not just on the system and data paritions.

Then the problem compounded itself on later backups because CWM stores it's backups in the internal memory partition. So for the second backup it would backup the entire contents of the internal memory again so the backup would be another 4GB, and this time it would also include the last backup, which was like 4GB alone. So the total backup size was 8GB instead of the 1GB it was supposed to be.

And the best part was the the backups were being hidden on the internal partition like CWM likes to do now so they were taking up a ton of space but weren't showing up as used space on the internal storage graphs.

That problem got fixed by the ClockworkMod team for the Galaxy Tab 2 series of tablets so I assume they addressed it on the recovery for all devices. But maybe you are still seeing a similar issue on your GS4.

You should be able to check if this is the problem by going to the ClockworkMod app and looking at your backups. Try deleting one of them (copy it to a PC or to the EXT SD Card if you don't want to lose it) and then see if your available internal memory goes way up afterwards.

If the problem isn't CWM (Or if you're not using CWM), I'd bet it's still something similar, where you have very large files that aren't being reported to the graph in settings. Try copying the entire contents of the SD Card to either an external SD card or to a PC just so you dont' lose anything. Then format the internal SD card using the formating option from the system settings menu. See if you have 10GB again, and then copy all your files back. (Look at them on the PC first and make sure there isn't a 6GB file in there somewhere)


I had a feeling that some back-ups were taking up the space.

I have OUDHS as my recovery, and I noticed that it was only able to keep track of one, or I was only able to restore from the most recent back up. I guess I should switch to another recovery. I had TWRP on it for a bit, but it was too sensitive, and extremely difficult to scroll down the lists of menus without accidentally opening something. I wonder if that has been fixed in some of the later revisions of it though

There is a ClockworkMod app? :confused:

I assume you mean the internal storage is the internal SD card, and not the removable Micro SD card; I didn't know that that part could be reformatted.

Would ticking re-partition on odin do something similar?

Thank you for your help by the way! :D
 

Skipjacks

Senior Member
Nov 1, 2011
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Baltimore
Yes there is am clockwork mod app that let's you control and organize the recovery settings and to keep your backups organized. It is available on the play store.

Yes Im talking about the internal storage. Android 4.2 calls that the SD card and the removable storage the EXT SD or SD 1. You have files hiding on the internal storage. I've never used OUDHS so I'm not sure how it stores its backups.

As for formatting the internal storage I wouldn't mess with repartitioning in Odin unless you really know what you are doing. Just boot to recovery and wipe data. Sorry I said something different before...I was thinking about the external SD card for a second. (Back up the data to the external SD card or a PC first, obviously). If you want to be really thorough do a factory reset. You will have to redo all your settings doing that though. But either way should clear the internal SD card.

Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.
 
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etherealglimpse

Senior Member
Oct 11, 2010
160
15
Hello I was wondering if there was anyway to disable the phone from playing the ring tone and notification tones through the speaker while wearing headphones. Do I need a custom rom for this? Thanks.
 

crawler9

Senior Member
Mar 30, 2010
716
296
Ohio
Hi, can someone confirm for me that I'm following the correct steps? I haven't found anything clear on exactly how to go about the process of returning my device to 100% stock after searching and viewing many threads. I have the general idea, and just want clarification on one part.

I ODIN flashed the official MDL image.
I rooted my device using CF-auto-root.
I used Triangle Away to change all my bootloader information to official and change my information to official.
I then wiped my data/cache in stock recovery.
I once again ODIN flashed the official MDL image to remove traces of root that were added by CF-auto-root, such as the SuperSU app and binary.

I think it's all back to stock. Everything in download mode shows as official. My system status says official in the about menu within the ROM. The one thing I can't see on this device is the flash counter without rerooting with CF-auto-root again, so I want to confirm that ODIN flashing M919UVUAMDL_M919TMBAMDL_M919UVUAMDL_HOME.tar.md5 did not increment my flash counter. I wouldn't think it would seeing as it's a official tar, but I figured it'd be best to ask the people who know for certain before taking it in for replacement.
 

Skipjacks

Senior Member
Nov 1, 2011
5,416
4,329
Baltimore
Hi, can someone confirm for me that I'm following the correct steps? I haven't found anything clear on exactly how to go about the process of returning my device to 100% stock after searching and viewing many threads. I have the general idea, and just want clarification on one part.

I ODIN flashed the official MDL image.
I rooted my device using CF-auto-root.
I used Triangle Away to change all my bootloader information to official and change my information to official.
I then wiped my data/cache in stock recovery.
I once again ODIN flashed the official MDL image to remove traces of root that were added by CF-auto-root, such as the SuperSU app and binary.

I think it's all back to stock. Everything in download mode shows as official. My system status says official in the about menu within the ROM. The one thing I can't see on this device is the flash counter without rerooting with CF-auto-root again, so I want to confirm that ODIN flashing M919UVUAMDL_M919TMBAMDL_M919UVUAMDL_HOME.tar.md5 did not increment my flash counter. I wouldn't think it would seeing as it's a official tar, but I figured it'd be best to ask the people who know for certain before taking it in for replacement.

Are you taking it back to t mobile for warranty replacement? If so you should be good. The guy at the t mobile store isn't going to check your flash counter, which should be 0 anyway based on the steps you took. If you boot into download mode you should be able to see if the flash count is zero. I think if its zero it won't show anything. If its more than 0 you will see the flash count.

Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.
 
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Skipjacks

Senior Member
Nov 1, 2011
5,416
4,329
Baltimore
Hello I was wondering if there was anyway to disable the phone from playing the ring tone and notification tones through the speaker while wearing headphones. Do I need a custom rom for this? Thanks.

Are you using the headphones with the mic that let you talk on the phone phone over headphones? Or are you using straight headphones that are for listening to audio only?

I think, but am not sure, that this makes a difference.

If someone else can give a better answer I welcome it.

Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.
 

crawler9

Senior Member
Mar 30, 2010
716
296
Ohio
Are you taking it back to t mobile for warranty replacement? If so you should be good. The guy at the t mobile store isn't going to check your flash counter, which should be 0 anyway based on the steps you took. If you boot into download mode you should be able to see if the flash count is zero. I think if its zero it won't show anything. If its more than 0 you will see the flash count.

Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.



Are you taking it back to t mobile for warranty replacement?
I am. It's been heating up so much while it's been charging that it stops charging and pops up a message saying the battery temperature is too high.

If you boot into download mode you should be able to see if the flash count is zero. I think if its zero it won't show anything. If its more than 0 you will see the flash count.
Are you sure about this? I don't think I've ever seen a flash count on this phone and have read that it is completely hidden on this phone, and that you never see it. I didn't see anything in download mode before using Triangle Away either, but Triangle Away showed a flash count around 15 before resetting it, so obviously it had been incremented.

which should be 0 anyway based on the steps you took.
That's what I really wanted to know. In other words, using ODIN to flash an official tar should not increment the counter at all... Thanks!

Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.
Very clever. I like your signature. ;)
 

Skipjacks

Senior Member
Nov 1, 2011
5,416
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Baltimore
I am. It's been heating up so much while it's been charging that it stops charging and pops up a message saying the battery temperature is too high.

For this purpose I think you are fine. The guy at t mobile isn't going to check the flash counter.


Are you sure about this? I don't think I've ever seen a flash count on this phone and have read that it is completely hidden on this phone, and that you never see it. I didn't see anything in download mode before using Triangle Away either, but Triangle Away showed a flash count around 15 before resetting it, so obviously it had been incremented.

I am not 100% sure, no. What I described has been the standard on Samsung devices for a while, but they might have changed it. But if you really want to check you could reroot it and use triangle away to check the flash counter again. If you had set it to 0 it should only be 1 when you get it rooted again. Then you can do the original steps to take it back to 0.


That's what I really wanted to know. In other words, using ODIN to flash an official tar should not increment the counter at all... Thanks!

I'm not completely certain of this either. But again I am more than completely certain that t mobile will take the return and will never realize that its been flashed. I am assuming you are taking it to a t mobile store.


Also read this thread...other people talking about doing exactly what you are.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=42639795

Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.
 
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etherealglimpse

Senior Member
Oct 11, 2010
160
15
Are you using the headphones with the mic that let you talk on the phone phone over headphones? Or are you using straight headphones that are for listening to audio only?

I think, but am not sure, that this makes a difference.

If someone else can give a better answer I welcome it.

Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.

I think there's no way to change it. I've tried both. The volumes in the headphones reduces and I hear the ringtone through the earphones and through the phone speaker at the same time. Maybe it's a feature but I don't' like it lol.

Also, I think the sounds sucks on sgs4 compared to sgs3. Anyone experiencing this? It just doesn't sound too clear through headphones and I'm using pretty decent headphones. ath-m50, r7, senn 595

Update: I think the source files I was using was crap oops. I tried a good 320 and now it sounds just about the same lol.
 
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tarqeq

New member
Jun 18, 2013
3
0
Toronto
Installing Heimdall on OSX 10.7.5

Greetings, seriously dumb question: I'm trying to install Heimdall on my Mac. In the readme file it says to install simply run "heimdall suite.pkg," but I can't find it anywhere in my download. What am I missing here?

Thanks!!
 

rizoh66

Senior Member
Apr 23, 2007
605
109
Salt City, Utah
My city just got LTE yesterday and I seemed to have lost my tethering abilities. I'm on DarthStalker and the unlimited data plan. I was able to tether before with no issues... Does LTE have anything to do with not being able to tether now?
 

Skipjacks

Senior Member
Nov 1, 2011
5,416
4,329
Baltimore
My city just got LTE yesterday and I seemed to have lost my tethering abilities. I'm on DarthStalker and the unlimited data plan. I was able to tether before with no issues... Does LTE have anything to do with not being able to tether now?

This sounds like a question for t mobile customer service. But...don't talk to the basic call center. Try to get tech support on the line as they will actually know what LTE is.

If LTE is the problem, can you keep the phone connected at non LTE speed and fix it? Or does that still not work?

Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.
 

Skipjacks

Senior Member
Nov 1, 2011
5,416
4,329
Baltimore
Greetings, seriously dumb question: I'm trying to install Heimdall on my Mac. In the readme file it says to install simply run "heimdall suite.pkg," but I can't find it anywhere in my download. What am I missing here?

Thanks!!

Sorry I have never used a Mac in my life and have no idea how to help you. You might try asking this in the help thread for the AT&T variant, the i9505. There are more users in that forum and your question is obviously not variant specific.

Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.
 

rizoh66

Senior Member
Apr 23, 2007
605
109
Salt City, Utah
This sounds like a question for t mobile customer service. But...don't talk to the basic call center. Try to get tech support on the line as they will actually know what LTE is.

If LTE is the problem, can you keep the phone connected at non LTE speed and fix it? Or does that still not work?

Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.

Can't call tmob support, I have the unlimited data plan and am using the tethering hack built into DarthStalker's rom.

Yes, if I switch it to hspa+ 4G then I can tether. But I was hoping to take advantage of the LTE speeds.
 

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    help.png

    Hello T Mobile Galaxy S4 users! I've taken this thread idea from Marlybru, one of the most helpful Recognized Contributors on XDA, who got the idea from Undercover, just to give proper credit where it is due.

    The HTC Sensation has had an ongoing Noob Help thread for more than a year now and it's been an invaluable resource to people of all skills levels looking for answers to questions that might get flamed if asked anywhere else.


    There are a lot of people joining XDA on daily basis, and there are a lot of repetitive questions being asked which fill up Development Threads and the main Q&A Forum. Post those questions here!.

    First things first. I strongly advise you to read this thread before posting ANYTHING ANYWHERE on XDA.

    Second
    The SEARCH button is your best friend. It will go to war with you. It will tuck you in at night. It lives to serve you! Use it! Almost any question you can think up has already been answered on XDA. Before posting in threads see if the Search Button will fine the answer for you. If you can't find the answer or if you don't understand the answer, then come here and the community will do all it can to help you figure it out.

    Third. Re-read the Second thing. This cannot be stressed enough.

    Fourth. Don't just come here to ask questions. Come back to help others! In a fairly short time many of you who come to this thread to ask super noobie questions will start to get pretty proficient at Android modding. Please keep coming back to this thread to help the next wave of rookies that are coming after you. Remember, you needed your hand held once, pay it forward by holding someone else's hand.

    ASK ANY QUESTION HERE
    Odin, ROM's, rooting help etc...... you will either get an answer or will get pointed in the right direction.


    Please, be aware of the model of your phone when asking questions.

    This thread and this entire forum deals with the T Mobile Variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 model SSGH - M919.

    Other Samsung Galaxy S4 Variants



    No abuse towards noobs or silly questions is tolerated here!

    There is no such thing as a dumb question in this thread. If you need to ask how to take the back cover off your phone or how to wipe cache, feel free to ask it here. All questions are welcome.

    If you engage in noob bashing here because someone asked a simple question I will search your post history and find the posts you made when you first signed up here about which button turns your phone on and post them here for everyone to laugh at. (By the way, go take a look at my rookie posts. There are some doozies.)

    Everyone was new here once,so Noobs New users, please take the time to familiarize yourselves with how things work in the forum by reading this helpful guide. I linked this above, but it's such a great guide on how to be a great XDA Community Member that it's worth linking it twice.

    As development continues and we start seeing patterns of repeat questions I'll link answers to the most common questions here in the first couple posts of the thread. So keep an eye out for those updates over the next several months.
    16
    Some of the most common questions....

    What is the difference between the S4 Development Forum and the S4 Original Development Forum?
    The regular development forum is for ROMs based on Samsung's Touchwiz version of Android
    The original development forum is for AOSP or other based non Touchwiz ROMs, recoveries, and such

    What is Odin?
    Odin is a program that lets you flash things to a Samsung mobile device from a PC. It's an invaluable part of modding Samsung devices.
    Here is a guide by k0nana about how to use Odin. You can find download links for the software there as well as a few other things.

    If you need a little more detail on how to use Odin this is a more detailed write up by Intratech explaining how to use it. (Note, do not download and try to install anything from this thread. That is a thread with GS3 files. If you try to put those on your GS4 you will not be happy. This thread is for information on Odin ONLY!)

    How do I root my Galaxy S4?
    CF-Auto Root by Chainfire

    What ROMs are there for the T Mobile GS4?

    Here's a big list of them with links all organized in one place. Thanks to MT3G.

    What recoveries are available for the T Mobile SGS4?
    ClockworkMod
    TWRP
    PhilZTouch
    OUDHS

    What are all these installed apps on the stock ROM that I don't know anything about?
    That could be bloatware. Stuff T Mobile and Samsung put on there for a variety of reasons. See this list by Xologist explaining what all those APK's are.

    How come my 16GB phone says I have only 5GB available even though I just flashed a fresh ROM?

    First off, you never had 16GB free. That's the total memory on the device. That includes the space for the ROM, recovery, bootloader, system files, data, and then what's left over is your user partition which is abou 11GB for you to put photos and music on.

    But if you make a nandroid backup using Clockwork Mod Recovery it saves the backup in a hidden directory that uses up a lot of space. (About 1 GB for an AOSP backup and 2 or 3GB for a TouchWiz backup). You can use the CWM Recovery App to find and upload the backup to your computer over Wifi for safe storage. Or you can just delete he backup if you no longer need it.

    I bought a phone off Craigslist and the IMEI is bad!

    You learned a valuable lesson. Don't buy phones off Craigslist. And don't try to change your IMEI. It is illegal to do so. And don't ask XDA how to change it because we can't discuss that here.

    However, if you haven't bought you used phone yet and you are worried about it having a bad IMEI, have the seller meet you at a T Mobile store and get the sales rep to verify its a clean phone with no outstanding payment due and that the IMEI won't be blocked in the future. Just be sure that YOU pick the store to meet at. Don't let the seller pick the store in case he has a T Mobile rep working with him.


    THESE POSTS / ARTICLES SHOULD BE CONSIDERED REQUIRED READING FOR ALL NEW ANDROID USERS!!!

    http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile...plained-boot-system-recovery-data-cache-misc/This is a great write up of how Android is organized under the hood. This is invaluable knowledge to help you get better not just at modding your phone, but for really understanding wha you're doing.

    This post by The TechnoCrat explains what most of the common words and phrases you will hear around XDA mean. Things like 'Kernel' and 'Clock Speed' and 'Governors'. If you don't know what terms like that mean, do yourself a favor and read this post. It is like the Rosetta Stone to understanding 95% of threads on XDA.

    Another great post by Technocrat that explains the difference between the various available governors.
    4
    Why exactly does most everyone recommend to let a ROM sit for 5 minutes then reboot on a fresh install?

    The same reason they say not to swim for an hour after you eat. Because that's what someone else told them and it became urban legend with no basis in reality. (And yes, it is perfectly safe to swim after eating.)

    The idea is that the ROM is still installing and 'settling in' for 5-10 minutes after first boot. And that doign other operations interferes with that process.

    The reality is that the final stages of a ROM install are that part where it says ANDROID IS UPGRADING during the first boot. When that's done the ROM is installed and ready to use. And even if it did still need to 'settle in' after that it's a computer. It performs operations exactly to spec every time. So you can't really interfere with it by using it. If you tak eup processor time so that a 'settle in' operation cant' complete right away it will just wait a second and perform that task later. That's what the I/O scheduler in the kernel is for.

    Additionally this is an ancient rumor, which in the Android world means like 2 years, from the days of single core processors with slow speeds. (You remember the Froyo Android devices that had vacuum tubes and cooling fans, right?) So that final push to finish installing maybe took a little time on those older devices. But on a quad core processor device that has more computing power than more of the old computers you have around your house? That final 'settle in' process would take seconds, even though it doesn't really exist.

    So that's why this is out there. It's the same as "calibrating the battery stats" that everyone thinks is so important. Someone said to do it, others believed them, and the next thing you know people assume it's Android Gospel. But it's all just sillyness.
    3
    Thread stuck, no trolling, flaming, or off-topic banter please, this is a development site and is here to further development.

    Report violations of XDA posting rules immediately and have fun with your contributions.
    3
    Noob here with some questions!

    Is it really possible to install CM without rooting? And if they don't recommend it, does that mean I should unroot before following the instructions?

    Yes. It's completely possible. And easy. Let's clarify what a few thigns mean first...

    "Rooting" means giving you access to the system partition of the phone storage. That means the files that run the phone itself as opposed to just your personal data. This is done with an app called Superuser that kind of acts as a gate keeper between the system partition adn the rest of the storage. The only thing that 'rooting' does is install the Superuser app as a system app just like all the apps that came on the phone when you bought it like the phone app and the messenger app, etc (Instead of as a user app like everything you download from the Play store). That's it. Nothing else.

    Once that Superuser app is installed it allows or denies permission for other apps to access the system partition of the device. (It prompts you each time an app wants to access the system partition and asks you if you want to lef t it)

    If you root the phone using CF Auto Root, again you are only installing the Superuser app. Nothing else. But once the Superuser app is installed you can then use an app like ROM Manager to install a recovery. You will tell ROM Manager to install a recovery and you will get a pop up promot from Superuser saying "Do you really want to let ROM Manager have root access?" You say yes, and it will install the custom recovery.

    Recovery is sort of like a mini operating system you can boot into instead of the phone. From inside recovery you always have full root access. You can do anything. Install anything, wipe anything, etc. So once recovery is installed you can then wipe the phone clean and install CyanogenMod.

    Doing this will wipe out the Superuser app you installed with CF Auto Root because you will wipe the system partition clean. But it will install a new set of system files in the same sopt and a new copy of Superuser will be included. (Actually on CM10 Superuser is integrated into the ROM framework, but same thing...) So when you boot into CyanogenMod for the first time you will already be rooted and have Superuser. (Well, you'll have the ability to get Superuser. On CM you have check a box in settings to give you root access, but it's as easy as that. No fancy stuff. It's disabled by default.)

    What the CyanogenMod team is saying is that since you need Odin or Heimdal to install Superuser using CF Auto Root just so you can use ROM Manager to then flash a recovery, you may as well just use Odin or Heimdal to install a recovery. Then boot right into recovery and flash CyanogenMod.

    The short version of all this is that if you ant to go right from bone unrooted stock to CyanogenMod, rooting it first is just an extra step. It won't hurt, but it doesn't help either. Just adds extra steps and time to the process. But there's a downside to doing that, which ties in nicely with your next question....

    Doesn't a Nandroid backup make an image of your phone, so you don't need TB to back up apps too?

    A Nandroid is a full backup of everything. It's like you're own little custom flashable ROM. The data from it isn't really usable unless you flash the entire thing to restore the phone to the same exact state it was in when you made the nandroid.

    In other words, while a nandroid will back up all your user and app data, it's not putting it into a usable form for restoring after installing a new ROM. There are apps that let you extract data from a nandroid but it's a pain in the butt.

    By rooting the phone first using CF Auto Root and installing Titanium Backup on the stock ROM, you can back up all your apps and user data. Then wipe the phone clean, install CyanogenMod, then install Titanium again and boom...your saved app data will show up in Titanium ready to be restored!

    Read up on how to change the storage location in Titanium form EXT SD Card ot Legacy after installing CyanogenMod though or you'll get errors in Titanium. It's super easy. It's just a setting in Titanium. But you have to do it because it's set wrong by default.

    CyanogenMod's website says to use "ClockworkMod Recovery, and the Heimdall Suite," is ClockworkMod the same as Nandroid backup?

    :confused::silly:

    No. Yes. Kind of.

    A nandroid backup is a saved version of your entire phone. Ssyem data, user data, settings, text messages, contacts, apps, etc....it's like a 'system restore point' if you'd care to use Windows XP jargon.

    ClockworkMod is the thing that lets you make a Nandroid backup. You will also see discussion of TWRP Recovery and PhilzTouch. Same thing.