[ROOT] TowelRoot - 4.3 & 4.4.2

DocHoliday77 · Jul 13, 2014

Odin doesn't wipe data, so your apps and all are preserved. At some point you updated SuperSU causing it to be installed on the user data partition, which is why its still there after the flash. If you factory reset it should fix everything to be as you want. This will wipe internal sdcard though, so backup!

Shack70 · Jul 13, 2014

Thanks Doc, I had a feeling that is where I was headed.

Sent from my Amazon Jem using XDA Free mobile app

Shack70 · Jul 14, 2014

DocHoliday77 said:
Odin doesn't wipe data, so your apps and all are preserved. At some point you updated SuperSU causing it to be installed on the user data partition, which is why its still there after the flash. If you factory reset it should fix everything to be as you want. This will wipe internal sdcard though, so backup!

That worked! So now my next question would be if I wanted to root again what is the better way? Flash to route66 or towel?

Sent from my SGH-T999L using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

DocHoliday77 · Jul 14, 2014

Towelroot is the safer and easier way. Anytime you flash anything, there is some risk involved. With Towelroot, you're not doing any extra flashing so risk is reduced.
I still recommend and use root66, but only in certain situations now. Though it does have some risk involved because your flashing your device, its still pretty minimal.

FcHsChilD · Jul 14, 2014

I used Root66 for my SG3 but this would have saved some time downloading i suppose.As always great work.

chuangk · Jul 14, 2014

DocHoliday77 said:
Ok, for wifi, try this...

Open your dialer and enter *#0011#
This should open service mode.

Next press menu and select WiFi.
Press the button to turn wifi power saving mode off. (This has to be redone if you reboot)

Hopefully that'll help a little.

Thank you Doc for the advises and the easiest way to root the phone:good::good:. I did try to turn WIFI power saving mode off but without any noticeable improvement. I also factory-reset twice but the battery still drained a lot faster. One thing caught my attention immediately after the upgrade was that the battery charges faster but also drains faster. Not sure why this happened. Anyway, hope there will be a way to downgrade back to stock 4.3 soon.

DocHoliday77 · Jul 14, 2014

You can flash an older stock 4.3 rom, just not the full firmware. Maybe that'll help battery and wifi?

Rareutu · Jul 15, 2014

yeeahnick said:
thank you for this method, unfortunately i only found out about this now and rooted with cf-auto-root last night. Are there are advantages using towelroot instead of cf-auto-root besides that you dont need odin?

Out of curiousity, did your cf-auto-root method stick around longer than 48 hours? I'm on my third try and the root keeps disappearing. I'll flash back to stock 4.3 (NC2) when i get a chance and try towelroot, but there's no documentation on my issue online (to the best of my searches), and all the KNOX 'fixes' didn't work for me and it's all just incredibly maddening!

chuangk · Jul 15, 2014

DocHoliday77 said:
You can flash an older stock 4.3 rom, just not the full firmware. Maybe that'll help battery and wifi?

Hmmm, this is getting to an advance level to me. I downloaded the stock Wind mobile 4.3 rom from Sammobile but I think this rom is the full firmware. Do I just flash this rom using ODIN and then I am back to stock 4.3 or are there special steps to follow so the full firmware is not flashed? Sorry that I am not an expert on this.

yeeahnick · Jul 16, 2014

Rareutu said:
Out of curiousity, did your cf-auto-root method stick around longer than 48 hours? I'm on my third try and the root keeps disappearing. I'll flash back to stock 4.3 (NC2) when i get a chance and try towelroot, but there's no documentation on my issue online (to the best of my searches), and all the KNOX 'fixes' didn't work for me and it's all just incredibly maddening!

Yes i am still rooted as of today with cf-root. I did remove all the knox stuff manually with TB. Ive tried towelroot before and its really really easy and simple to use. Good luck

DocHoliday77 · Jul 16, 2014

Rareutu said:
Out of curiousity, did your cf-auto-root method stick around longer than 48 hours? I'm on my third try and the root keeps disappearing. I'll flash back to stock 4.3 (NC2) when i get a chance and try towelroot, but there's no documentation on my issue online (to the best of my searches), and all the KNOX 'fixes' didn't work for me and it's all just incredibly maddening!

What are you running now? Im assuming you're on 4.1.2, but you said you'd flash back to 4.3. Thats the latest available, so im kinda confused as to what you're flashing back from. If its a rom, you should already be rooted.

If you are on 4.1.2, I dont know if Towelroot will work. But if not just flash the root66 NC2 firmware.

chuangk said:
Hmmm, this is getting to an advance level to me. I downloaded the stock Wind mobile 4.3 rom from Sammobile but I think this rom is the full firmware. Do I just flash this rom using ODIN and then I am back to stock 4.3 or are there special steps to follow so the full firmware is not flashed? Sorry that I am not an expert on this.

It is the full firmware. And yes, flash using Odin. If you dont want the full firmware flashed you can use Mobile Odin but you have to already be rooted. Otherwise flash a rom in recovery n

chuangk · Jul 16, 2014

DocHoliday77 said:
What are you running now? Im assuming you're on 4.1.2, but you said you'd flash back to 4.3. Thats the latest available, so im kinda confused as to what you're flashing back from. If its a rom, you should already be rooted.

If you are on 4.1.2, I dont know if Towelroot will work. But if not just flash the root66 NC2 firmware.

It is the full firmware. And yes, flash using Odin. If you dont want the full firmware flashed you can use Mobile Odin but you have to already be rooted. Otherwise flash a rom in recovery n

Sorry Doc. My T999V is running on stock Wind Mobile 4.4.2 rooted with Towelroot. If I simply flash the stock Wind mobile 4.3 firmware using Odin, will my phone be back to 4.3 without problem? I have read some posts saying that this can't be done because of bootloader issue. Thanks.

dmgriz · Jul 16, 2014

Success with Eastlink T999V 4.4.2

CONFIRMED - Success rooting my Eastlink T999V (4.4.2) with towelroot. Same as @northghost, SuperSU hung up disabling KNOX but after a reset and opening SuperSU again, it worked like a charm. Thanks @geohot, Easy like Sunday morning...

Just curious anyone else have an Eastlink T999V?

DocHoliday77 · Jul 16, 2014

chuangk said:
Sorry Doc. My T999V is running on stock Wind Mobile 4.4.2 rooted with Towelroot. If I simply flash the stock Wind mobile 4.3 firmware using Odin, will my phone be back to 4.3 without problem? I have read some posts saying that this can't be done because of bootloader issue. Thanks.

Ok, you cannot flash the older firmware. Odin won't let you and if you try ither methods it'll brick. You can flash the older roms though. Or as I mentioned, you can flash the firmware via mobile odin. It doesn't flash the full firmware, only select parts of it. If you do try this, make sure you deselect the modem before flashing.
If you're not familiar with mobile odin, search xda for its thread for more info. If you have any other questions about it, or flashing the older roms from recovery, let me know.

DocHoliday77 · Jul 16, 2014

dmgriz said:
CONFIRMED - Success rooting my Eastlink T999V (4.4.2) with towelroot. Same as @northghost, SuperSU hung up disabling KNOX but after a reset and opening SuperSU again, it worked like a charm. Thanks @geohot, Easy like Sunday morning...

Just curious anyone else have an Eastlink T999V?

I think you're only the 2nd person ive ever seen around here with Eastlink!

dmgriz · Jul 16, 2014

DocHoliday77 said:
Ok, you cannot flash the older firmware. Odin won't let you and if you try ither methods it'll brick. You can flash the older roms though. Or as I mentioned, you can flash the firmware via mobile odin. It doesn't flash the full firmware, only select parts of it. If you do try this, make sure you deselect the modem before flashing.
If you're not familiar with mobile odin, search xda for its thread for more info. If you have any other questions about it, or flashing the older roms from recovery, let me know.

I can confirm this (just the Odin part, not the mobileOdin part!)

After the 4.4.2 update my alarm stopped working and ES File Manager was behaving strangely so I attempted to flash stock 4.3 with Odin. Got an error on my download screen that said something like "BOOTLOADER SW RV 2". I then tried to go back to stock 4.1.2, same error. Not knowing what else to do, I flashed the 4.2.2 update again and did a factory reset and Voila! Alarm works, ES works, rooted with Towelroot and everything appears to be fine. I would like to be able to get back to 4.1.2 someday so that I could give CM10 or some other ROM a try but for now it's all good.

serio22 · Jul 16, 2014

dmgriz said:
I would like to be able to get back to 4.1.2 someday so that I could give CM10 or some other ROM a try but for now it's all good.

You dont need to go back to 4.1.2, you can still flash those ROMs

dmgriz · Jul 16, 2014

serio22 said:
You dont need to go back to 4.1.2, you can still flash those ROMs

I didn't look much further than this post but it states that for CM you need to start from ICS. Is there another thread I should check out?

Rareutu · Jul 17, 2014

DocHoliday77 said:
What are you running now? Im assuming you're on 4.1.2, but you said you'd flash back to 4.3. Thats the latest available, so im kinda confused as to what you're flashing back from. If its a rom, you should already be rooted.

If you are on 4.1.2, I dont know if Towelroot will work. But if not just flash the root66 NC2 firmware. n

It's the strangest thing y'all. My root will come and go in seems like an arbitrary manner. The only reason i noticed is because my quickboot reboot widget would make the screen go blank (hang) from which i could hit the 'return' hardware key to go back to homescreen. I would then confirm by opening any root-needed app (triangle/TB, etc) and get the 'root needed for functionality' message.

In any case - to elaborate on the root coming and going phenomenon.

I came from stock T999 (non LTE) and believe i had an OTA or two under my belt but was running 4.0.1 or 4.1.1 latest! I can be lazy about these things and was happy about my original root method (though i can't remember which method that was) but recently tried to see if OTA method worked when i saw that Tmo was on to my root (settings/about/phone/software update produced message. Turns out the flash counter is responcible for that, as confirmed after Triangle usage).

Then i flashed latest NC2 update - found through samfirmware via ODIN, and after i couldn't find a relatively 'safe' method to root (based on online documentation, reading up on KNOX, my own comfort levels, etc), stumbled on the cf-auto-root and flashed that. So far so good for a couple of days.

Then, after a couple of days, the root was gone as described above. Reflashed auto root, integrated SuperSU into system and ran Aroma Installer full de-bloat. I couldn't find the recommended knox system entries to delete via TB, and assumed they were never included in the auto-root image. But i did download KNOX Disabler just in case. Never used it.

Then my root was gone again after a couple of days and thinking i had nothing to lose i tried to run KNOX Disabler. The app didn't seem to work and looked like it was hanging, but after a reboot the root has returned.

So now the situation is that (and this is mostly trial and error), the root will disappear after some time (i'm paranoically checking it twice a day now, and might establish duration or reboot patterns at some point), at which point i'll go through the knox disabler/hang/reboot/root returned loop.

My situation seems unique as far as wide google and xda search results - and it seems manageable (if annoying) for the moment, but it would be great to understand and resolve the bloody strangeness.

Thanks for listening and any contributions on the matter!

serio22 · Jul 17, 2014

Rareutu said:
It's the strangest thing y'all. My root will come and go in seems like an arbitrary manner. The only reason i noticed is because my quickboot reboot widget would make the screen go blank (hang) from which i could hit the 'return' hardware key to go back to homescreen. I would then confirm by opening any root-needed app (triangle/TB, etc) and get the 'root needed for functionality' message.

In any case - to elaborate on the root coming and going phenomenon.

I came from stock T999 (non LTE) and believe i had an OTA or two under my belt but was running 4.0.1 or 4.1.1 latest! I can be lazy about these things and was happy about my original root method (though i can't remember which method that was) but recently tried to see if OTA method worked when i saw that Tmo was on to my root (settings/about/phone/software update produced message. Turns out the flash counter is responcible for that, as confirmed after Triangle usage).

Then i flashed latest NC2 update - found through samfirmware via ODIN, and after i couldn't find a relatively 'safe' method to root (based on online documentation, reading up on KNOX, my own comfort levels, etc), stumbled on the cf-auto-root and flashed that. So far so good for a couple of days.

Then, after a couple of days, the root was gone as described above. Reflashed auto root, integrated SuperSU into system and ran Aroma Installer full de-bloat. I couldn't find the recommended knox system entries to delete via TB, and assumed they were never included in the auto-root image. But i did download KNOX Disabler just in case. Never used it.

Then my root was gone again after a couple of days and thinking i had nothing to lose i tried to run KNOX Disabler. The app didn't seem to work and looked like it was hanging, but after a reboot the root has returned.

So now the situation is that (and this is mostly trial and error), the root will disappear after some time (i'm paranoically checking it twice a day now, and might establish duration or reboot patterns at some point), at which point i'll go through the knox disabler/hang/reboot/root returned loop.

My situation seems unique as far as wide google and xda search results - and it seems manageable (if annoying) for the moment, but it would be great to understand and resolve the bloody strangeness.

Thanks for listening and any contributions on the matter!

Did you ever open SuperSU and disable Knox from there? Knox may be conflicting with root access

---------- Post added at 12:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:02 PM ----------

dmgriz said:
I didn't look much further than this post but it states that for CM you need to start from ICS. Is there another thread I should check out?

It was probably an old post.. I'm sure it will work, but since it is an old cm build you may need to edit the assert lines to match your bootloader.. I wouldn't go back to cm10 though since we have cm11

[ROOT] TowelRoot - 4.3 & 4.4.2

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