[Root] [guide] Samsung Galaxy A20 rooting guide

jajk · Oct 4, 2019

@droidzer1 I have figured out to to recover quickly after trashing the phone. It needs to make like E.T and call home before it will let you access the unlocked bootloader for real - before that happens, it only pretends to give you access to break your spirit and eventually submit to the will of Samsung.
On the more serious side of things....... In Australia we are limited in brands and models on offer (the land of the duopoly) so to buy one of the better OnePlus, Google Pixel or even Moto offerings is either impossible or priced over the top. I took a punt on the A20 which has been a bit of a failure with crippled hardware performance (SoC, Camera, Modem, Sound etc), mediocre battery life even after a good debloating. All I ever want is a cheapo phone that can be rooted, debloated, de-Googled, de-Samsunged or de-whatever branded. Is that allowed anymore or am I being a non-conformist?
I still use my Moto G 2013 as my primary device running 7.1 - now that was a good phone but whether or not that can be said about current Lenovo built Motos is another question.....

droidzer1 · Oct 5, 2019

jajk said:
@droidzer1 I have figured out to to recover quickly after trashing the phone. It needs to make like E.T and call home before it will let you access the unlocked bootloader for real - before that happens, it only pretends to give you access to break your spirit and eventually submit to the will of Samsung.
On the more serious side of things....... In Australia we are limited in brands and models on offer (the land of the duopoly) so to buy one of the better OnePlus, Google Pixel or even Moto offerings is either impossible or priced over the top. I took a punt on the A20 which has been a bit of a failure with crippled hardware performance (SoC, Camera, Modem, Sound etc), mediocre battery life even after a good debloating. All I ever want is a cheapo phone that can be rooted, debloated, de-Googled, de-Samsunged or de-whatever branded. Is that allowed anymore or am I being a non-conformist?
I still use my Moto G 2013 as my primary device running 7.1 - now that was a good phone but whether or not that can be said about current Lenovo built Motos is another question.....

Well that explains it. Your phone is listening to all the bad things you say about it so it is trying to mess with you by being as difficult as possible. LOL ... but seriously I don't have a SIM in mine so it can't call home unless Wifi is on. I think my experience was that even if OEM unlock is grayed out you can still install Magisk and once you do that it is no longer grayed out. From official Magisk directions - this info may be relevant:
since things had changed drastically from previous Samsung devices, and there are some
details that many might not know, I figure this would be helpful.
Allow bootloader unlocking in Developer options → OEM unlocking
Power off your device. Press Bixby + Volume Down and plug in your device to a PC to boot into download mode.
Long press volume up to unlock the bootloader. This will wipe your data and automatically reboot.
Just when you think the bootloader is unlocked, surprise surprise, it is actually not! Samsung introduced VaultKeeper in the system, meaning the bootloader will reject any unofficial partitions before VaultKeeper explicitly allows it.
Go through the initial setup. Skip through all the steps since data will be wiped again later when we are installing Magisk. Connect the device to internet in the setup!
Enable developer options, and confirm that the OEM unlocking option exists and grayed out! The VaultKeeper service will unleash the bootloader after it confirms that the user has the OEM unlocking option enabled. This step is to simply make sure the service gets
the correct info, and also double check that our device is in a correct state
Your bootloader now accepts unofficial images in download mode.

jajk · Oct 5, 2019

@droidzer1 Yes, it must be that Vaultkeeper service protecting the pot of gold (my data) for Samsung and Alphabet to plunder. Note to self: Do not delete or disable Samsung Payment service again - it is crucial to the phone remaining functional because it involves Samsung and money......hmmm?
If Samsung and Alphabet are so concerned about our phone security, then why do we still run Webview v72 and miss out on all the so called "security" improvements released since then? Why do we get a warning when replacing the stock keyboard that the aftermarket keyboard app will be able to keylog our every move when the reverse is exactly the reason to replace it?
What a joke this is all becoming.......why can't I have a phone that just does what I want it to do and doesn't split the spoils of my data between 2 badly behaved multinational companies?

argonax · Oct 7, 2019

is there someone from the PH tried this rooting method I am afraid to try it with my A20.

physwizz · Oct 7, 2019

argonax said:
is there someone from the PH tried this rooting method I am afraid to try it with my A20.

It works with all A20s except the SM-A205U

droidzer1 · Oct 7, 2019

argonax said:
is there someone from the PH tried this rooting method I am afraid to try it with my A20.

Download the stock ROM for your phone first - make sure you have the correct model and build. Then if anything goes wrong you can flash the stock ROM back with Odin. As long as you don't have the Metro PCS model (SM-A205U) you should be good to go. I'd suggest looking here: https://samsung-firmware.org/model/SM-A205G/ or search from their home page: https://samsung-firmware.org/

argonax · Oct 8, 2019

droidzer1 said:
Download the stock ROM for your phone first - make sure you have the correct model and build. Then if anything goes wrong you can flash the stock ROM back with Odin. As long as you don't have the Metro PCS model (SM-A205U) you should be good to go. I'd suggest looking here: https://samsung-firmware.org/model/SM-A205G/ or search from their home page: https://samsung-firmware.org/

I am using SM-A250GN from ph. i will try but my history in rooting samsung is 1 out of 10 only samsung s3 rogers edition i was successfully doing the root process.

droidzer1 · Oct 8, 2019

argonax said:
I am using SM-A250GN from ph. i will try but my history in rooting samsung is 1 out of 10 only samsung s3 rogers edition i was successfully doing the root process.

That site has your model for stock ROMs here: https://samsung-firmware.org/model/SM-A205GN/
People here can help you out if you have trouble but following the directions you should be fine. However if it's your only phone and you must rely on it being dependable at all times (like when a root attempt fails) then I would understand not trying this. A computer with at least Windows 7 will be helpful if you decide to try.

argonax · Oct 9, 2019

droidzer1 said:
That site has your model for stock ROMs here: https://samsung-firmware.org/model/SM-A205GN/
People here can help you out if you have trouble but following the directions you should be fine. However if it's your only phone and you must rely on it being dependable at all times (like when a root attempt fails) then I would understand not trying this. A computer with at least Windows 7 will be helpful if you decide to try.

I have a windows 10 pro laptop. my only problem is, does my phone still receive s OTA incase I root it?bootloader will be unlocked as well right?

droidzer1 · Oct 9, 2019

argonax said:
I have a windows 10 pro laptop. my only problem is, does my phone still receive s OTA incase I root it?bootloader will be unlocked as well right?

Yes boot loader would be unlocked and you won't get OTA updates unless you restore your phone to stock. Then you would need to reinstall TWRP and probably re-root it.

janga9 · Oct 13, 2019

physwizz said:
2. Download the rom for your device from [LINKS REMOVED BECAUSE I AM A NEW USER].

These links don't work. The second one doesnt have my device (SM-A205YN) listed, and the first one the download will fail about a quarter of the way through every time :/

Does anyone have any working links for the SM-A205YN? Also, I'm not entirely sure what the difference between VAP, TLP and XSA firmware is. They are all listed under the SM-A205YN page on the first link given, but it doesnt tell me what the difference is. FWIW I plan on installing a GSI ROM later anyway, so does it matter?

Thanks

physwizz · Oct 13, 2019

janga9 said:
These links don't work. The second one doesnt have my device (SM-A205YN) listed, and the first one the download will fail about a quarter of the way through every time :/

Does anyone have any working links for the SM-A205YN? Also, I'm not entirely sure what the difference between VAP, TLP and XSA firmware is. They are all listed under the SM-A205YN page on the first link given, but it doesnt tell me what the difference is. FWIW I plan on installing a GSI ROM later anyway, so does it matter?

Thanks

I downloaded the 205yn vap.
Check your "about phone" to see

janga9 · Oct 13, 2019

physwizz said:
I downloaded the 205yn vap.
Check your "about phone" to see

Thank you! I had mine listed as XSA under Service Provider. Thanks for the info

physwizz · Oct 13, 2019

janga9 said:
Thank you! I had mine listed as XSA under Service Provider. Thanks for the info

sit the phone right next to the wifi and don't use it until download is finished.

janga9 · Oct 14, 2019

physwizz said:
sit the phone right next to the wifi and don't use it until download is finished.

Didnt help

It still fails everytime about half an hour after i start the download.

would anyone be able to supply an alternative mirror?

physwizz · Oct 14, 2019

janga9 said:
Didnt help It still fails everytime about half an hour after i start the download.

would anyone be able to supply an alternative mirror?

I don't know of one.
You might try downloading to a computer with a good internet connection (NBN)

janga9 · Oct 14, 2019

physwizz said:
I don't know of one.
You might try downloading to a computer with a good internet connection

I live in Australia (hence SM-A205YN) and I have the NBN, our governments "upgraded" broadband connection, which crippled my internet. I now get better speeds than the old ADSL connection, but it slows to a snail every 10 minutes. I have tried several ISP's, contacting the government directly to get them to fix our ****ing broadband, but nothing works. My home internet is utter trash and most of my internet use is done from 4G now.

I'll have to try getting a mate to download it for me and copy it to my computer.

Thanks tho

physwizz · Oct 14, 2019

janga9 said:
I live in Australia (hence SM-A205YN) and I have the NBN, our governments "upgraded" broadband connection, which crippled my internet. I now get better speeds than the old ADSL connection, but it slows to a snail every 10 minutes. I have tried several ISP's, contacting the government directly to get them to fix our ****ing broadband, but nothing works. My home internet is utter trash and most of my internet use is done from 4G now.

I'll have to try getting a mate to download it for me and copy it to my computer.

Thanks tho

I'll be getting the nbn soon.

butchieboy · Oct 30, 2019

Can we root U3 bootloader? I am still on U2ASG1

Sent from my SM-A205G using Tapatalk

vicecry · Oct 31, 2019

SM-A205F

i followed steps same as you wrote after flasing patched boot.img my phone wasn't starting and showed error at samsung a20 logo screen in red color at top of screen " Only Official Release Binaries Are Allowed To Be Flash " and then phone was turning power off automatically wasn't able to boot rom, my firmware was up to date/updated then i decided to flash stock june 2019 firmware of my region and now im able to root my phone easily without any error but facing 1 error in TWRP E:FBE found but FBE support not present in TWRP.
maybe this magisk root method has been patched in latest firmware update as i was getting error in updated firmware "Only Official Release Binaries Are Allowed To Be Flash"

[Root] [guide] Samsung Galaxy A20 rooting guide

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