POLL: Unable to unlock your prime? POTENTIAL FIX! Mine is unlocked!

How was your unlocking experience using Asus' unlock tool?

  • Unlocked with no issues whatsoever.

    Votes: 151 29.1%
  • Unlocked after factory reset.

    Votes: 12 2.3%
  • Unlocked after downgrading to older version.

    Votes: 3 0.6%
  • Unlocked EVEN after an RMA.

    Votes: 7 1.3%
  • Unable to unlock due to "unknown error".

    Votes: 346 66.7%

  • Total voters
    519
Search This thread

nhshah7

Senior Member
Feb 14, 2009
2,068
568
Boston
4/18/2013
After months of waiting, my tablet is FINALLY UNLOCKED! If you are in the US, see this post. Thanks you Tien (Asus_USA)!


Update 9/2013:
It's back.

It works

Sooooooo people, contact ASUS Support about your device tracker not working! They will give you support on that, and because it has the same problem causing it, it will fix the unlock issue!


Hi all, I decided to finally take the dive a couple days ago to unlock my beloved prime and try out androwook and other custom roms that supposedly put stock to shame. However, I was unfortunately confronted by a crude and nasty message along the lines of:

Code:
An unknown error occurs, which may be a network connection issue. 
Please wait and try again later

As usual, I unrooted, rebooted, and tried again. No luck.
I disabled and uninstalled ATP Tweak (sio scheduler/systune), replaced my modified dock keyboard files (browser mod, switched alt/search buttons), and tried again. No luck.
Factory reset from the settings menu. No luck.
Placed the .28 US update on my SD card, rebooted, and re-flashed the update. No luck.

Where does that leave me now? Locked and feeling imprisoned. I'm wondering if it is worth it to downgrade and try unlocking. So far, I have only seen one person have any success with this. Due to the potential brick risk, I want to stay away from this unless I know it will work. I also know that Asus asked for the MAC address of a prime owner with this issue, but that didn't go anywhere.

This seems like it may be an issue that is experienced by anyone that RMA'ed their tablet for whatever reason. I, personally, sent mine in for a green camera issue and mura, but do not think that they changed my motherboard.

I am also curious to see how many other people are having this issue. If it is sizable, I am willing to start a petition to Asus for them to support their unlock tool and fix this stupid error without an RMA. To that effect, please answer the poll above to let me gather some data on the unlock tool.

Thanks to everyone for your help and support that makes xda such an amazing community!

PS I don't want to see any "Asus sucks" posts. There are tons of other threads for that so please spare us :)



Additional info:
Have tried this on several different network connections.
Have not yet contacted Asus to see if they have my prime listed as "unlocked" already, but will do so sometime this week.
Logcat of running unlock tool results in this:
Code:
D/KeyBoxService(10158): === StatusCode: SC_UNAUTHORIZED!

D/KeyBoxService(10158): === OTA BEGIN

E/KeyBoxService(10158): === Connection to http://wvdrm.asus.com refused

D/KeyBoxService(10158): === Retry after 600 seconds.

D/KeyBoxService(10158): === OTA END





July 13th Update:

I have contacted Asus with this information. I learned something interesting. Asus has my tablet (s/n) listed as LOCKED. They also did not replace my mainboard when I RMA'ed the tablet. I also have not had the unknown serial number issue. Considering those were the 3 criteria a few of us had considered to be the reasons for not being able to unlock, I am now baffled.

I am going to continue communicating with Asus and hopefully push the matter a little bit more so that something happens. As I was told, "HQ is probably aware and working towards a fix". Let's hope that happens sooner rather than later.

September 5th update:
Seems that Asus HQ figured out a fix, but it requires an RMA. We'll find out soon if it actually works...

September 29th update:
Some of the members in this thread have sent their primes in for an RMA to fix the issue. The first prime back STILL has the problem. Asus HQ is looking into the matter...again...
 
Last edited:

dude2k5

Senior Member
Jul 9, 2010
761
284
www.futurenology.com
Asus wants me to resend my tablet back to RMA to see if they can fix the problem. I'll see what they have to say, don't really want to RMA back. It's a software issue it seems to me, changing any hardware will just make it worse.

edit: Email was no help. Dumb. Stuck again! Yay
 
Last edited:

nhshah7

Senior Member
Feb 14, 2009
2,068
568
Boston
Asus wants me to resend my tablet back to RMA to see if they can fix the problem. I'll see what they have to say, don't really want to RMA back. It's a software issue it seems to me, changing any hardware will just make it worse.

Agreed, this seems like a server/application issue that they can fix on their end hopefully!
 

CharliesTheMan

Senior Member
Agreed, this seems like a server/application issue that they can fix on their end hopefully!

I found a tool for downgrading that worked pretty well, and when combined with Sparkys tool that will root you so easily on .28, the process of downgrading might be worth a try once you've done everything else.

I'm anxious to hear if anyone who's never rooted and has a serial number has ever had this problem.

I thought my tablet hadn't been unlocked correctly because of some issues and some of the people helping me troubleshoot and figure out the prime when I first got it told me to try running the unlock tool again and said i should get a response, but I always got the same network error. However I bought my prime second hand and it had been rooted before. Finally ended up doing some manual tests with ADB to determine if my problem was unlock related and it wasn't.

I had just gotten the prime, and people said even being unlocked I still shouldn't have gotten that network error. I just gave up after that, and have always wondered if it was related to it being previously rooted.
 

Parastie

Senior Member
Apr 27, 2010
825
95
Malta
No Problems here

I have a rooted 0.28, I did not root until after I got the 0.28 update.
I just ran the unlock tool downloaded from this thread:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1510737
I had to use the dropbox downlown because the one from ASUS would not work.

Unlocked, no issues. No factor reset necessary, no removing root. Now i'm completely unlocked and ruined my warranty just for you guys.

Now i'm going to go install a custom rom.
Later.
 
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whycali

Senior Member
Apr 21, 2010
1,262
290
Unlocking by a dummy

I unlocked a couple of weeks ago but it wasn't easy. Why? because I am half dumb and need reading glasses. It took me part of 2 days to figure out what was going on. I would get to the final scare screen that warns you that if you do this you are screwed forever and then I could not go any further. There were no buttons to click or agreement check boxes to check just the sad warning big as life.

Then I watched a video, the one with the hyper dude with braces unlocking his prime. And I realized I was missing the buttons on that warning screen. It occurred to met that I had amped up my font size so I could read my tablet without my reading glasses. This action made the font from the warning too big to fit the button on the screen. Went into settings, decreased font size, unlocked, never better.
 

Parastie

Senior Member
Apr 27, 2010
825
95
Malta
I unlocked a couple of weeks ago but it wasn't easy. Why? because I am half dumb and need reading glasses. It took me part of 2 days to figure out what was going on. I would get to the final scare screen that warns you that if you do this you are screwed forever and then I could not go any further. There were no buttons to click or agreement check boxes to check just the sad warning big as life.

Then I watched a video, the one with the hyper dude with braces unlocking his prime. And I realized I was missing the buttons on that warning screen. It occurred to met that I had amped up my font size so I could read my tablet without my reading glasses. This action made the font from the warning too big to fit the button on the screen. Went into settings, decreased font size, unlocked, never better.

I thanked your post just because it made me laugh. :good:
 
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Reactions: whycali

nhshah7

Senior Member
Feb 14, 2009
2,068
568
Boston
I can't unlock my tablet. I just don't get any error message at all. But I am 100% sure it's not unlocked.

have you tried getting a logcat of your prime while you're running the unlock tool? it's REALLY easy if you have adb setup. if not, you can do it from a terminal emulator app. PM me if you need more help.

I have a rooted 0.28, I did not root until after I got the 0.28 update.
I just ran the unlock tool downloaded from this thread:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1510737
I had to use the dropbox downlown because the one from ASUS would not work.

Unlocked, no issues. No factor reset necessary, no removing root. Now i'm completely unlocked and ruined my warranty just for you guys.

Now i'm going to go install a custom rom.
Later.

I envy you! lol thanks and enjoy! :) did you ever send in your prime for RMA? I'm thinking that doing so screws us all over lol

I unlocked a couple of weeks ago but it wasn't easy. Why? because I am half dumb and need reading glasses. It took me part of 2 days to figure out what was going on. I would get to the final scare screen that warns you that if you do this you are screwed forever and then I could not go any further. There were no buttons to click or agreement check boxes to check just the sad warning big as life.

Then I watched a video, the one with the hyper dude with braces unlocking his prime. And I realized I was missing the buttons on that warning screen. It occurred to met that I had amped up my font size so I could read my tablet without my reading glasses. This action made the font from the warning too big to fit the button on the screen. Went into settings, decreased font size, unlocked, never better.

hahahahahaha i wish my problem were that simple :D
 

Parastie

Senior Member
Apr 27, 2010
825
95
Malta
I envy you! lol thanks and enjoy! :) did you ever send in your prime for RMA? I'm thinking that doing so screws us all over lol
No, never had to RMA. My device is from the US and I'm in Poland so I'm not sure if an RMA would work anyway. I've had it for a month and besides the left screen tearing issue, it works great!

I'm going to install Wooki first and see how that goes. TWRP is already installed and backup has been created. I'll report back if this fixes things. I'm going to try without doing a full wipe (cache and dalvik only). I don't really want to re-install everything.
 

nhshah7

Senior Member
Feb 14, 2009
2,068
568
Boston
No, never had to RMA. My device is from the US and I'm in Poland so I'm not sure if an RMA would work anyway. I've had it for a month and besides the left screen tearing issue, it works great!

I'm going to install Wooki first and see how that goes. TWRP is already installed and backup has been created. I'll report back if this fixes things. I'm going to try without doing a full wipe (cache and dalvik only). I don't really want to re-install everything.

From past experience, you should always do a full wipe especially if you want your prime to be performing well. Do a titanium backup of all your apps (the pro version is WELL worth the money) and you'll be up and running with an hour exactly how you were before. Good luck!
 

Parastie

Senior Member
Apr 27, 2010
825
95
Malta
From past experience, you should always do a full wipe especially if you want your prime to be performing well. Do a titanium backup of all your apps (the pro version is WELL worth the money) and you'll be up and running with an hour exactly how you were before. Good luck!

Yes, my experience with the HTC Desire tells me a full wipe is probably necessary, however I don't like titanium backup. It takes too long and it's easier just letting everything trickle in over the market. I've also found that, unless you're moving from 2.3 to 4.0.x clearing dalvik and cache usually works just as well. It's not like any rom formats the internal memory to use a different setup with better performance...though maybe that's not a bad idea. :D

BTW, when I said the one from ASUS wouldn't work, I meant it would not download. It just looping on my tablet to which browser it should use, and I eventually gave up and tried the other link.
 

dude2k5

Senior Member
Jul 9, 2010
761
284
www.futurenology.com
They changed the board or chip, when I did the RMA the .28 update JUST came out so I tried applying it before I sent it off. Worked, so it was updated. Then they sent it back after RMA and it was a March update, way back. Don't think they downgraded, but they did change something. Then no unlock at all (though I never tried beforehand, I imagine it would have worked)
 

bASKOU

Senior Member
Mar 4, 2012
818
292
Nîmes
Hi,

I don't have the same error message than you, it only say:

Failed to unlock the device, please try again later​

I tried again later 3 times already. I have .28 and rooted, I just wonder if it fail because I am rooted or not.
 
Last edited:

allthatinny

Senior Member
Oct 11, 2006
252
2
Correct me if am wrong but ur device is locked and u trying to do a OTA Update right??

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda app-developers app
 

Parastie

Senior Member
Apr 27, 2010
825
95
Malta
Hi,

I don't have the same error message than you, it only say:

Failed to unlock the device, please try again later​

I tried again later 3 times already. I have .28 and rooted, I just wonder if it fail because I am rooted or not.

I had .28 rooted and was able to do the unlock no problem. I had to download the app from a dropbox account as I was unable to download from ASUS's website.
 

AlphaDog_NL

Member
Feb 17, 2010
23
3
Delft
The issue seems to be related to RMAs. I bought mine 2nd hand from a guy who got it from his boss, so theres no way of knowing if it was ever returned. It doesnt seem to matter on which firmware you are or if you are rooted or not.... All we (probably) have in common is the RMA factor. At least thats progress! :D
 

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  • 12
    4/18/2013
    After months of waiting, my tablet is FINALLY UNLOCKED! If you are in the US, see this post. Thanks you Tien (Asus_USA)!


    Update 9/2013:
    It's back.

    It works

    Sooooooo people, contact ASUS Support about your device tracker not working! They will give you support on that, and because it has the same problem causing it, it will fix the unlock issue!


    Hi all, I decided to finally take the dive a couple days ago to unlock my beloved prime and try out androwook and other custom roms that supposedly put stock to shame. However, I was unfortunately confronted by a crude and nasty message along the lines of:

    Code:
    An unknown error occurs, which may be a network connection issue. 
    Please wait and try again later

    As usual, I unrooted, rebooted, and tried again. No luck.
    I disabled and uninstalled ATP Tweak (sio scheduler/systune), replaced my modified dock keyboard files (browser mod, switched alt/search buttons), and tried again. No luck.
    Factory reset from the settings menu. No luck.
    Placed the .28 US update on my SD card, rebooted, and re-flashed the update. No luck.

    Where does that leave me now? Locked and feeling imprisoned. I'm wondering if it is worth it to downgrade and try unlocking. So far, I have only seen one person have any success with this. Due to the potential brick risk, I want to stay away from this unless I know it will work. I also know that Asus asked for the MAC address of a prime owner with this issue, but that didn't go anywhere.

    This seems like it may be an issue that is experienced by anyone that RMA'ed their tablet for whatever reason. I, personally, sent mine in for a green camera issue and mura, but do not think that they changed my motherboard.

    I am also curious to see how many other people are having this issue. If it is sizable, I am willing to start a petition to Asus for them to support their unlock tool and fix this stupid error without an RMA. To that effect, please answer the poll above to let me gather some data on the unlock tool.

    Thanks to everyone for your help and support that makes xda such an amazing community!

    PS I don't want to see any "Asus sucks" posts. There are tons of other threads for that so please spare us :)



    Additional info:
    Have tried this on several different network connections.
    Have not yet contacted Asus to see if they have my prime listed as "unlocked" already, but will do so sometime this week.
    Logcat of running unlock tool results in this:
    Code:
    D/KeyBoxService(10158): === StatusCode: SC_UNAUTHORIZED!
    
    D/KeyBoxService(10158): === OTA BEGIN
    
    E/KeyBoxService(10158): === Connection to http://wvdrm.asus.com refused
    
    D/KeyBoxService(10158): === Retry after 600 seconds.
    
    D/KeyBoxService(10158): === OTA END





    July 13th Update:

    I have contacted Asus with this information. I learned something interesting. Asus has my tablet (s/n) listed as LOCKED. They also did not replace my mainboard when I RMA'ed the tablet. I also have not had the unknown serial number issue. Considering those were the 3 criteria a few of us had considered to be the reasons for not being able to unlock, I am now baffled.

    I am going to continue communicating with Asus and hopefully push the matter a little bit more so that something happens. As I was told, "HQ is probably aware and working towards a fix". Let's hope that happens sooner rather than later.

    September 5th update:
    Seems that Asus HQ figured out a fix, but it requires an RMA. We'll find out soon if it actually works...

    September 29th update:
    Some of the members in this thread have sent their primes in for an RMA to fix the issue. The first prime back STILL has the problem. Asus HQ is looking into the matter...again...
    9
    Hey Everyone!

    I haven't been on here in a while, but I'm back!

    For those who are in the US, have had their Primes RMAed, and can still not get the device to unlock, I am going to see if I can help. Please shoot me an e-mail at cl-tien@asus.com. Use the e-mail address as I rarely check the PMs here. In the e-mail, please include:

    Name:
    Previous RMA #s:
    Device Serial Number:
    MAC Address from the "about tablet" screen in the Settings:

    A screen shot of the About Tablet screen would be OK too; just make sure to send as an attachment.

    I am going to gather up some affected users and submit them to HQ. Hopefully, we can get some answers and some solutions soon. No promises as of right now, but we at the US office would like to get this resolved.

    Many thanks to nhshah7 for keeping me informed regarding this possible solution from HQ.
    7
    I cannot speak for other countries or regions, but if you are located in the US or Canada, our facilities do have a fix for the unlock error. However, as Mason said, it does require that you send it in for RMA.

    The call center and technical support might not be aware, but our technicians already know the procedure on how to fix it. I apologize to all of those who have tried to get an RMA for this through the call center. They are instructed not to assist with issues regarding unlocking device - as we all are. However, we understand that this is a special issue, and have set-up a repair process for the affected tablets.

    I apologize for the wait and would like to thank those who were patient while we got to the bottom of the issue, and devised a fix for it. If you are having a hard time with getting an RMA from the call center, please shoot me an e-mail to this inbox: cl-tien@asus.com and I will be happy to help arrange the RMA for you. Again, I can only assist those located in the US and Canada.

    Tien
    7
    Just an update to dev/analysis that I'm currently working on.

    A simple check of all the various releases that ASUS have done shows that the EBT partition (bootloader) have had various changes made to them in the past. For example, .17 and below will not show the "bootloader is unlocked" message whilst on boot, versions prior to the ICS release does not have the unlock alogrithm, etc.

    Rumor has it that the JB version of the TF300 have fastboot enabled, thus this might be of some help for us in the future, yet at the current moment, it helps us none.

    Anyhow, back to topic. Since there's been various changes in the bootloader itself, there may be a slight chance that ASUS left out one of the signature checks in one of the bootloader versions. Thus one angle that we could go is to keep trying different bootloaders and checking to see either if the blob signature check is in effect or if the AES engine has been disabled properly in the bootloader. If the blob signature check has been let out, then we would theoretically be able to flash a modified bootloader to bypass the various checks that happen in the bootloader. The AES engine part, if we can verify if it has forgotten to be disabled, we would be able to generate the NVflash files needed for wheelie, and we'd have more avenues to try.

    The other angle that I'm currently looking at is somehow figuring out the private key for RSA signature. I've looked into RSA signatures, and theoretically it is pretty much impossible to crack, specially in the case of RSA encryption. In RSA, the public key is used to encrypt, the private key is used to decrypt. In the case of RSA signatures, the private key is used to "decrypt" a string, usually the sha1 hash of the file needed to be signed. Then the public key is used to "encrypt" this signature, and compare the result with the hash of the file we want to check.

    Since we have various files from ASUS that have signatures, we have the "decrypted" strings which are the signatures, and the "encrypted" strings which would probably be the hash file checksums of the various blobs.

    In order to determine this logic, we need a few things. 1. we need to disassemble the bootloader binary file to determine whether it is in fact the sha file checksum that is being used as the string. 2. we need to disassemble the bootloader to get hold of the public key that is being used. I've tried the certificate in the zip files, however these appear to be a different certificate than the one that is being used for blob checking.

    I'm currently working mostly on a way to figure out the private key exponent that is being used to decrypt the strings. This is a very complex task, and possibly impossible, however having various combinations of signatures and strings should help. Once the signature can be figured out, we'd be able to sign the modified bootloader and load that into the system, effectively giving us an unlocked bootloader.

    The only problem is, I have not experience with disassembly of the bootloader binary. I believe I need a linux box with the arm toolchain installed at the least. On the other hand if any devs here already have disassembled the bootloader binary (for example android.root mobi team), then it would help in speeding things up.
    5
    News!

    If you can get me the serial number of your tablet along with the WiFi’s MAC address then HQ can use that to check the server conditions. You might want to collect the S/N and WiFi MAC of several people from the forum but at least if we have your S/N and WiFi MAC, I can have HQ check to see why you aren’t able to unlock the unit.

    Ok, so I might create a google doc and have you guys put the information so I can send it to them. Would you be ok with this? Or do you want to PM me instead?

    edit: here it is

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnAJoa0-ynONdEYxU1lhRVk3eGN2UWxOMU1aSG1hc3c