[Guide] Unlock Bootloader // Install TWRP // Root - Android 7.x NOUGAT

[joesee]

OK, so there's a post nearly identical to this, with the CLEAR exception of it being specific to Android 6.x (Marshmallow). For that thread, go HERE.

DO NOT ATTEMPT ANY OF THE BELOW STEPS ON MARSHMALLOW. THIS IS FOR ANDROID 7.X (NOUGAT ONLY)​

OK, quick backstory. Like the other link, none of this is my work and all the people whom I've worked with and confirmed each step of these instructions are working and validated are here:
spotting, clsA, Atarii, faizalotai, BonezMontana, schluk and Sheldd. This is NOT my work, this is the combination of all these guys help. Thank them! If you need any help, please post here. I'll help the best I can, but I've got a 15 month old and between changing diapers and RAGING FITS due to lack of Cheddar Goldfish, I spend my side time flashing like crazy. PLEASE assume all risk and responsibility when following the instructions below. If you mess up, ask for help. I'm not liable. Neither are the guys you should be thanking above for this!

Cheers!

This process assumes the following: You're on stock Android 7 (Nougat) with no modifications.​

Basic steps are:
1. Unlock the bootloader
2. Flash TWRP
3. Flash SuperSU
4. Fix your BT/NFC (if you have issues)
5. There is extra instruction here as well for AdAway and V4A (Viper4Android)

Unlock the bootloader​

Follow this link to unlock your bootloader.

1. Go to Huawei's EMUI site and log in. If you need to create a new account, do so. Link here: http://www.emui.com/en/plugin/hwdownload/download
2. Click on the DOWNLOAD link at the top of the site.
3. Underneath the search field you will see a green link that says "Unlock Bootloader". Click it and follow the instructions. You will be asked to enter in several pieces of information about your phone.
4. Once you've filled out all the information, you will receive your unlock code at the bottom of the screen. Write this down and save it. This number will NEVER change.
5. On your Honor 8, go to Settings > About and tap on the Build Number seven times until you unlock the Developer Settings.
6. In Developer Settings, check Enable OEM Unlock.
7. Scroll down a bit more and check USB Debugging.
8. Go to Huawei's site and download their HiSuite and install it. This installs the OFFICIAL Honor 8 USB driver. Link here: http://consumer.huawei.com/minisite/..._en/index.html Once the app is installed, you can unselect start with Windows under settings.
9. Plug in your Honor 8 with the provided USB cable. Give it about 45 seconds to install the driver and recognize it. You may need to go to your phone and tap on "Allow File Access". You will be presented with a question asking if you'd always like to trust the computer you just connected to. Select yes, if this is your primary computer you will be working with.
10. Now download the most up to date ADB drivers. A Google employee has created one link to get that and make it easy. Link here: https://developer.android.com/studio...orm-tools.html
11. Open the zip file you just downloaded and create a folder on your computer easy to get to (I recommend c:\ADB) and paste those files there so they are extracted.
12. Now open the folder up in Windows Explorer if you closed it and hold down the Shift key and RIGHT click in the open area and click "Open command window here"
13. Type adb devices and hit enter. You should see a device ID as a response in the window.
14. Type adb reboot bootloader and hit enter. Give it a couple of seconds and the phone will load the bootloader.
15. Now type fastboot devices and hit enter. You should see your device ID appear again.
16. LAST CHANCE before it wipes everything and unlocks the booloader!!! Type fastboot oem unlock XXXXXXXXXX (where XXXXXXXXXX is the unlock code you received on step 4) and hit enter. It will ask if you're sure. Once this is done, the phone will wipe your data, unlock the phone and reboot. Your Honor 8's bootloader is now unlocked.

Flash TWRP​

Grab a working copy of TWRP here.

1. Download TWRP into the same folder you used in the steps above (where you're keeping all your files)
2. Navigate in Windows Explorer to this location and hold down the Shift key and RIGHT click in the open area and click "Open command window here"
3. Type adb devices and hit enter. You should see a device ID as a response in the window.
4. Type adb reboot bootloader and hit enter. Give it a couple of seconds and the phone will load the bootloader.
5. Now type fastboot devices and hit enter. You should see your device ID appear again.
6. Type fastboot flash recovery frd-twrp.img and hit enter.
7. Once this is complete, unplug your phone.
8. Hold Volume UP and Power at the same time. Release ONLY the Power button after the blue Honor logo appears.
9. You now are booted into TWRP and it's been successfully flashed.

Flash SuperSU​

Download the SuperSU SPECIFICALLY FOR NOUGAT here.

1. Boot into TWRP
2. Once there, when asked to keep system read only? - swipe to allow modifications
3. Tap Install
4. Tap Select Storage - Select your SD card
5. Select the supersu file "SuperSU-v2.79-201612051815-EMUI5.0.zip"
6. Swipe to confirm flash
7. Ignore the multiple errors: "Failed to mount '/data' (Invalid argument)
8. Go back to the main menu
9. Select Reboot to Recovery
10. When asked to keep system read only? - swiped to allow modifications (again)
11. Tap Wipe
12. Tap Format Data
13. Type YES then hit enter
14. It will format data using make_ext4fs..
15. When finished, tap Reboot System
16. Reboot back into TWRP
17. Swipe to allow modifications (You can check the box to never show this again)
18. Tap Install
19. Select storage
20. Select your SD card
21. Select the supersu file "SuperSU-v2.79-201612051815-EMUI5.0.zip"
22. Swipe to confirm flash
23. You should see NO ERRORS now when installing SuperSU
24. Wipe cache/dalvik
25. Swipe to wipe
26. Reboot system

Fix your BT/NFC (if you have issues)​

Some people are stating that after flashing this fix that they lose their keyboard. I'm throwing up a link here to get the latest GBoard.apk file.

Follow these instructions to fix BT/NFC issues.

This file is for the FRD-L04 ONLY.

Instruction for AdAway​

Follow these instructions to get AdAway working. This is only instruction, NOT where to download. I suggest F-Droid. Use Google.

Instruction for V4A (Viper4Android)​

Follow these instructions to get Viper working on Nougat.

How multiple people have successfully gone back to MM if they have too many issues with Nougat.​

Follow these instructions to get back to MM. Breathe.. it's actually not that bad at all.

You can find the OFFICIAL files to download on the Honor Support site located HERE.

 

[trainpunk]

Hi, i suggest removing the code tags and add the quote one instead so that people wont have to scroll down and scroll sideways too

 

[takichiman]

Thanks for the sum-up! This thread gave me enough confidence to tweak my Honor8 on Nougat.

I'll try to get Adaway tonight, and will report any problems

EDIT: After flashing the update_data_full_hw_usa.zip to get BT and NFC, I only got NFC back. Can't turn on BT.
I reformated data to f2fs and reflashed supersu then update_data_full_hw_usa.zip but it's even worse, I don't have NFC. @joesee, any idea what went wrong?
=> considering a rollback now...

 

[LastStandingDroid]

I already have 2 zips for viper which just needs to install and then set selinux to permissive and no struggle with installation if u have busy box

Sent from my NATASHA using Tapatalk

 

[joesee]

I already have 2 zips for viper which just needs to install and then set selinux to permissive and no struggle with installation if u have busy box

Sent from my NATASHA using Tapatalk

Yeah, there were a lot of people including myself that had issues with that not working unless we renamed that audio_effects.conf file. To test, I even tried the standard apk file to try to install because I really hate the new EQ layout of the version 2.5. It is such a pain in the butt to scroll over just to adjust a frequency!

 

[joesee]

Hi, i suggest removing the code tags and add the quote one instead so that people wont have to scroll down and scroll sideways too

That's the one I was actually trying to do but I've never posted anything extravagant like that on here haha. Thanks!

 

[joesee]

Thanks for the sum-up! This thread gave me enough confidence to tweak my Honor8 on Nougat.

I'll try to get Adaway tonight, and will report any problems

EDIT: After flashing the update_data_full_hw_usa.zip to get BT and NFC, I only got NFC back. Can't turn on BT.
I reformated data to f2fs and reflashed supersu then update_data_full_hw_usa.zip but it's even worse, I don't have NFC. @joesee, any idea what went wrong?
=> considering a rollback now...

Well I've went through this process three times myself back when I was trying to figure it out. There's at least two other threads that say the data partition needs formatted to f2fs. I don't know if the formatting of the data partition has anything to do with it or not to be honest because right now my data partition is ext4 and I don't have issues. Before you roll back, try doing a factory reset and just letting that process reformat on it's own and see if that resolves. If it does, I'll update the OP and just take that part out.

It was only put there because several people said that it was a better format and more efficient, so I'm not sure!

 

[takichiman]

Well I've went through this process three times myself back when I was trying to figure it out. There's at least two other threads that say the data partition needs formatted to f2fs. I don't know if the formatting of the data partition has anything to do with it or not to be honest because right now my data partition is ext4 and I don't have issues. Before you roll back, try doing a factory reset and just letting that process reformat on it's own and see if that resolves. If it does, I'll update the OP and just take that part out.

It was only put there because several people said that it was a better format and more efficient, so I'm not sure!

After the factory reset, NFC is back, but BT cannot be turned on.
From what I understood, do I need to make sure to have an ext4 data partition to rollback to MM ?
Thanks for the answer

 

[joesee]

After the factory reset, NFC is back, but BT cannot be turned on.
From what I understood, do I need to make sure to have an ext4 data partition to rollback to MM ?
Thanks for the answer

I had a conversation with the guy in this thread: https://xdaforums.com/honor-8/help/problem-downgrading-nougat-t3550015/post70859564#post70859564 While he says you really should - I didn't, and had no problems at all with it. Your mileage may vary.

 

[takichiman]

I had a conversation with the guy in this thread: https://xdaforums.com/honor-8/help/problem-downgrading-nougat-t3550015/post70859564#post70859564 While he says you really should - I didn't, and had no problems at all with it. Your mileage may vary.

Okay thank you.
Just for information, it looks like my firmware version is now B320 while I had the B360 before. Probably due to the flashing of update_data_full_hw_usa.zip

Regarding the rollback procedure (which I'm doing for the 1st time), while everybody mention that i should put the dload folder in the sdcard, the huawei pdf document indicates that I should put it in the internal storage
Is huawei mistaken or am I mixing things?

 

[faizalotai]

Okay thank you.
Just for information, it looks like my firmware version is now B320 while I had the B360 before. Probably due to the flashing of update_data_full_hw_usa.zip

Regarding the rollback procedure (which I'm doing for the 1st time), while everybody mention that i should put the dload folder in the sdcard, the huawei pdf document indicates that I should put it in the internal storage
Is huawei mistaken or am I mixing things?

Right now there's too many version of data full.zip, your's because of older version of full data.zip..
Just make sure its around 0.88mb for b360..

 

[joesee]

Okay thank you.
Just for information, it looks like my firmware version is now B320 while I had the B360 before. Probably due to the flashing of update_data_full_hw_usa.zip

Regarding the rollback procedure (which I'm doing for the 1st time), while everybody mention that i should put the dload folder in the sdcard, the huawei pdf document indicates that I should put it in the internal storage
Is huawei mistaken or am I mixing things?

Either or will work for the dload folder. I've flashed both actually. Might be better to put it on the SD instead of internal so it's easier to format. Your choice, really.

Regarding the firmware versions, I think the OTA brought it up to 360 and that update data is a zip created from 320. Don't quote me on that, though.

 

[takichiman]

Either or will work for the dload folder. I've flashed both actually. Might be better to put it on the SD instead of internal so it's easier to format. Your choice, really.

Regarding the firmware versions, I think the OTA brought it up to 360 and that update data is a zip created from 320. Don't quote me on that, though.

Right now there's too many version of data full.zip, your's because of older version of full data.zip..
Just make sure its around 0.88mb for b360..

Following what @faizalotai said, I will find a data update for the B360 and try and flash it and see what happens.

 

[joesee]

Following what @faizalotai said, I will find a data update for the B360 and try and flash it and see what happens.

I'd be curious to know because I'm on b320 right now. I haven't tried making a backup of my current ROM yet. I hope it doesn't fail. I've never been able to backup MM.

 

[takichiman]

I'd be curious to know because I'm on b320 right now. I haven't tried making a backup of my current ROM yet. I hope it doesn't fail. I've never been able to backup MM.

Sadly, it didn't work. I was in that case in which I have no keyboard, no apps and so on...
So I rollbacked to MM using Huawei's official packages.

If anyone needs the B360 data file, refer to this thread

 

[joesee]

Sadly, it didn't work. I was in that case in which I have no keyboard, no apps and so on...
So I rollbacked to MM using Huawei's official packages.

If anyone needs the B360 data file, refer to this thread

Did you get BT back?

 

[takichiman]

Did you get BT back?

Yes,
when rolling back to MM, I also noticed that TWRP was replaced by the stock recovery. I'm not yet certain but the bootloader is probably locked now.
I think I lost BT because i flashed a data zip prior to the firmware version I was using.
But I remain curious, I think i'll try to update to Nougat again and retry all of this again.

 

[Mumtaz77]

Please, link downloadable files directly. If You write a complete tutorial, the peoples won't need to read another one, to point a final link, where he at least download the suggested files.
Please, short this way.

 

[Skeletor916]

For what it's worth, I only had to flash this file from TWRP to get the apps back and fix nfc and bt on my l04. It's the data file for the newest b360. http://update.hicloud.com:8180/TDS/...09/f1/full/hw/usa/update_data_full_hw_usa.zip

Oh, the keyboard wasn't working... So I texted myself my email and password from my lady's phone, copied and pasted that in to get into the Play Store, opened up my apps and installed my favorite keyboard. Now to mess it up some more...

 

[joesee]

For what it's worth, I only had to flash this file from TWRP to get the apps back and fix nfc and bt on my l04. It's the data file for the newest b360. http://update.hicloud.com:8180/TDS/...09/f1/full/hw/usa/update_data_full_hw_usa.zip

Oh, the keyboard wasn't working... So I texted myself my email and password from my lady's phone, copied and pasted that in to get into the Play Store, opened up my apps and installed my favorite keyboard. Now to mess it up some more...

Thanks for sharing this. I'll update the OP with the newer b360 data file. I'm curious what the difference is between b320 and b360. Wonder if it's worth the effort to try to upgrade.