[8.1.x][OFFICIAL][RELEASE] CarbonROM | cr-6.1 [maple]

[LSS4181]

I am still using Oreo blobs (because Pie wasn't released when I started working on the Pie bringup) and you should have the latest Stock Oreo on your device.
I don't know how many more times I need to say it that you need to stay away from SODP and their kernel and ESPECIALLY their OEM binary.

I understand about staying away from SODP kernel and OEM binary, which reminded me of the time when I tried to build AOSP according to the "official guide" and flashed the images (including OEM) into my device only to find out the result was a total nightmare that would throw tons of errors (bluetooth-related and some others) then power itself off after a few seconds, what a disappointment.

Currently I do have recent stock Oreo blobs on my device, yet the generated cr-7.0 ROM zip could not boot after flashing from TWRP. The AOSP fiasco forced me to flash the entire stock Oreo ROM with FlashTool before flashing CarbonROM as the SODP OEM binaries broke the phone call functionality (I could not hear the other side, nor could the other side hear me, a total silence).

As for the question about whether recent stock blobs (from Pie) would be needed was mainly about the changes on stock Pie that people have already noticed, notably the camera, which no longer saves green photos compared to stock Oreo, on an unlocked device, although that alone might not be enough.

This is by far not enough. The camera quality will likely decrease (it always did) so the drm fix is still recommended. What Sony did is avoiding a long overdue lawsuit due to literally breaking users devices.

Isn't it interesting how the update to fix camera issues that existed since the X Performance that was released over TWO year ago has been fixed less then two weeks after class action law suites were made legal in Europe, Sonys main market?

The mere fact, that they PROVED they could fix it throws a big ball of shade on the whole company. You can't tell me it took them 2 years to fix (especially as I know how the DRM fix on XDA works) so they clearly just didn't care at all before.

This is far from being anything near developer friendly. This is a ****show.

Still, It's possible that a 4.9-based stock kernel would be needed to get a bootable build for cr-7.0 (I once asked in the thread regarding the stock Pie firmware and the answer was 4.9).

For now, the 4.9 stock kernel in question (along with recent stock firmware builds) is not yet on the kernel copyleft archives. But anyway, I've got an overall understanding of the current status of cr-7.0 for our device, and I'll be looking forward to an official release in the future.

 

[xStatiZx]

Downloaded, Flashed, worked 1st time!
Thanks for the hard work!

 

[Myself5]

Still, It's possible that a 4.9-based stock kernel would be needed to get a bootable build for cr-7.0 (I once asked in the thread regarding the stock Pie firmware and the answer was 4.9).

For now, the 4.9 stock kernel in question (along with recent stock firmware builds) is not yet on the kernel copyleft archives. But anyway, I've got an overall understanding of the current status of cr-7.0 for our device, and I'll be looking forward to an official release in the future.

I had a long reply to this typed up, but it appears I never sent it. My bad.

Anyways, there is no 4.9 Stock kernel. Pie stock uses 4.4 and you've been bluntly lied to. There is no Qualcomm utilizing OEM that ever did a major kernel version upgrade during releases (not even sure if QComm allows that). The only time I've seen an OEM do that was on a (yes I'm aware of the irony here) a MediaTek chip. Namely the MT6580 that got an upgrade from 3.4 to 3.10.

 

[jesserly]

i did an update now my phone wants to know it password , i didnt put in one ?!

what now ?

can you help ?

 

[droem]

Any plans for Pie update? Thanks!

 

[Myself5]

i did an update now my phone wants to know it password , i didnt put in one ?!

what now ?

can you help ?

What did you update from, what did you update to?

Any plans for Pie update? Thanks!

Yes.

 

[droem]

What did you update from, what did you update to?



Yes.

Cool, when will it be available?

 

[LazerL0rd]

Cool, when will it be available?

We don't ask for ETAs here... .

 

[LSS4181]

I had a long reply to this typed up, but it appears I never sent it. My bad.

Anyways, there is no 4.9 Stock kernel. Pie stock uses 4.4 and you've been bluntly lied to. There is no Qualcomm utilizing OEM that ever did a major kernel version upgrade during releases (not even sure if QComm allows that). The only time I've seen an OEM do that was on a (yes I'm aware of the irony here) a MediaTek chip. Namely the MT6580 that got an upgrade from 3.4 to 3.10.

Hmmm... so it's only SODP kernel that somehow got bumped to 4.9, not the stock one... I've noticed that on the same thread someone else asked that the Pie is still using 4.4, and the one who once told me 4.9 mentioned something about a xflash kernel...

Flash xflash kernel from new flaher

I don't know what exactly the "xflash kernel" he mentioned is, and I'm not going to discuss it here as it's irrelevant.

i did an update now my phone wants to know it password , i didnt put in one ?!

what now ?

can you help ?

What kind of password it asks for? If it's a text password and you set a screen lock of anything but that (PIN, pattern, etc.), then you probably hit a bug. This happens occasionally with ROM updates, if you still have "force encrypt" enabled on the phone (which encrypts the phone the first thing it boots). It seems CarbonROM (or TWRP) has intermittent issues with encryption enabled.

I encountered the issue once during an update, and that time for some reasons, the TWRP was able to decrypt the data partition with default password, despite the fact that I had always been asked to decrypt it using my own PIN. I got out of it, by reverting the update, deleted the lock screen settings (it's not valid anymore), and reconfigured the PIN so that TWRP could only decrypt the partition with the PIN I just configured. The re-encrypted data partition continued to work since then.

I don't know exactly how to disable encryption, but I somehow managed to disable it when I was recovering from the failed attempt of flashing a self-built AOSP Pie ROM based on the official guide. The failure forced me to wipe everything and start from scratch (stuffs properly backed up though), and somehow, after wiping data partition, it no longer auto-encrypts upon first boot. I do prefer having the phone encrypted in case something happens (such as theft), but it seems the mechanism seldom copes well with custom ROMs... will consider re-enabling encryption some time later... if the thing's considered stable.

 

[jesserly]

What did you update from, what did you update to?



Yes.

i update CARBON-CR-6.1-NOCT-RELEASE-maple-20181112-1652
to CARBON-CR-6.1-NOCT-RELEASE-maple-20181211-1443

yes the first time installation carbon encrypted my phone. i did not set any password or pin .

yesterday i did update from twrp and for some reason it did ask for a password.

i deleted the installation installed the first one but now with a pin and when i boot into twrp it asked for the same pin .
then i did the same thing as before and got the same issue.
my pin did not work .

 

[JosephDM]

Do you think sony will provide update to android 10 for xz premium guys?

 

[HoiFung]

i update CARBON-CR-6.1-NOCT-RELEASE-maple-20181112-1652
to CARBON-CR-6.1-NOCT-RELEASE-maple-20181211-1443

yes the first time installation carbon encrypted my phone. i did not set any password or pin .

yesterday i did update from twrp and for some reason it did ask for a password.

i deleted the installation installed the first one but now with a pin and when i boot into twrp it asked for the same pin .
then i did the same thing as before and got the same issue.
my pin did not work .

Try formatting the data partition with twrp.

 

[JosephDM]

sorry I'm new to sony phones, can you tell if carbon rom is better or equal in terms of features and performance to the stock rom?

 

[LSS4181]

i update CARBON-CR-6.1-NOCT-RELEASE-maple-20181112-1652
to CARBON-CR-6.1-NOCT-RELEASE-maple-20181211-1443

yes the first time installation carbon encrypted my phone. i did not set any password or pin .

yesterday i did update from twrp and for some reason it did ask for a password.

i deleted the installation installed the first one but now with a pin and when i boot into twrp it asked for the same pin .
then i did the same thing as before and got the same issue.
my pin did not work .

If Carbon encrypted your phone then your phone's "force encrypt" option is still on.

After you reconfigured the PIN and flashed the new version, if it's asking for a text password, try going back to TWRP. If this time TWRP doesn't ask you for the password like it normally would, then it is a problem. Usually a single reconfiguration of screen lock should fix the inconsistency and it shouldn't happen again as long as you don't change the PIN, but if your case is reproducible, then the two builds might not be compatible in terms of encryption.

Try formatting the data partition with twrp.

Should note that it's better having data backed up properly before doing so as it'll wipe everything, especially if you intend to flash ROMs and such afterwards and you don't have external SD card (when using both SIMs or you're G8141). Use it only as a last resort.

EDIT: I'm suspecting that on rare occasions, the decryption credential might have been reset to default during the flash process which messed things up, causing TWRP to no longer require the security option you previously set to successfully decrypt the /data partition and such, and that Android starts prompting for a text password that you didn't set (because it's confused and doesn't know what to do anymore to decrypt the data partition). It's possible that Android's security settings only encrypts the key used to transparently decrypt the device, not the entire partition (because it would be obviously impractical due to the overhead involved in decrypting and re-encrypting contents and the risks of total data loss in case of power failure such as running out of battery in the process).

 

[JosephDM]

Is it possible build Oxygen OS Rom for Xperia XZ Premium?

 

[LSS4181]

Is it possible build Oxygen OS Rom for Xperia XZ Premium?

Not sure about which tree you'd use. If using SODP's trees then you need to ask in the respective forums or threads (AOSP-related), as CarbonROM is not based on SODP, it uses stock OEM binaries with kernel based on the copyleft archive (all of which have nothing to do with SODP).

The device, vendor and kernel trees here are tailored for CarbonROM so you could start building it right away with a local manifest configured to sync the aforementioned trees, without issues. For other ROMs, you might need to tailor them to their formats. I'm not an expert in tailoring device/vendor/kernel trees for a different ROM, and I'm trying to learn about it in hope to discover some new possibilities.

Currently the trees are for Oreo (cr-6.1). You need to cherrypick latest commits from Gerrit if you want to build Pie (cr-7.0), but currently you can successfully build after cherrypick but the results are not yet bootable (looking forward to the day when it formally comes out).

 

[Myself5]

Not sure about which tree you'd use. If using SODP's trees then you need to ask in the respective forums or threads (AOSP-related), as CarbonROM is not based on SODP, it uses stock OEM binaries with kernel based on the copyleft archive (all of which have nothing to do with SODP).

The device, vendor and kernel trees here are tailored for CarbonROM so you could start building it right away with a local manifest configured to sync the aforementioned trees, without issues. For other ROMs, you might need to tailor them to their formats. I'm not an expert in tailoring device/vendor/kernel trees for a different ROM, and I'm trying to learn about it in hope to discover some new possibilities.

Currently the trees are for Oreo (cr-6.1). You need to cherrypick latest commits from Gerrit if you want to build Pie (cr-7.0), but currently you can successfully build after cherrypick but the results are not yet bootable (looking forward to the day when it formally comes out).

In theory a nice explanation, however Oxygen OS is the stock ROM of OnePlus devices. Oxygen OS is not Open Source, so you can't build it from source either ;P

 

[JosephDM]

In theory a nice explanation, however Oxygen OS is the stock ROM of OnePlus devices. Oxygen OS is not Open Source, so you can't build it from source either ;P

I wanna buy XZ Premium but I see it's not so developer friendly, why did you chose to focus especially on Carbon OS rather than famous roms like RR, AOSPA or LOS? And is this rom better than stock xperia rom?

 

[Myself5]

I wanna buy XZ Premium but I see it's not so developer friendly, why did you chose to focus especially on CarbonROM rather than famous roms like RR, AOSPA or LOS? And is this rom better than stock xperia rom?

How am I supposed to answer that kind of question?

Whatever I tell you about how Carbon is supreme over the ROMs you mentioned the opinion would be biased anyways, lol.

I've been with Carbon for a long time and meanwhile am the Lead Dev. Obviously I would always vouch for CarbonROM. Also it's CarbonROM, not Carbon OS

Anyways though: If you want custom ROMs or any kind of custom development, stay the hell away from Sony. I can personally recommend the OnePlus 6 (my current daily driver) which should be around the same price as the XZP while being better than the XZP in almost every aspect.

 

[LSS4181]

Anyways though: If you want custom ROMs or any kind of custom development, stay the hell away from Sony. I can personally recommend the OnePlus 6 (my current daily driver) which should be around the same price as the XZP while being better than the XZP in almost every aspect.

It's clear that SODP have so many regressions that there hardly ever were a day when everything's perfect (often when something got fixed, something else broke).

EDIT: Maybe a bit too soon to say that... just that I'm not sure if it's possible to freeze a SODP codebase when there were nothing broken (stable), so one can compile at that state to build images that actually work...

I recall someone mentioned Sony being the 2nd largest contributor to AOSP (the 1st being Google), yet from the looks of it, SODP's code quality is indeed concerning. They are providing official guides for building, yet the code quality cannot guarantee that the images built are confident enough to be able to boot properly on actual devices. I once followed the official build guides and succeeded in building one, yet when I flashed them (including the OEM binaries as AOSP needed those), the phone threw out many crashes upon startup and powered off by itself a few seconds later (I did not even touch the power button), left me disappointed and frustrated. It took me a lot of effort to revert everything back to the previous state (including stock OEM binaries).

I wanna buy XZ Premium but I see it's not so developer friendly, why did you chose to focus especially on Carbon OS rather than famous roms like RR, AOSPA or LOS? And is this rom better than stock xperia rom?

You're welcome to port if you have adequate experience in ROM building and porting. At one time there existed an official AOSPA build for G8141 (can work on G8142 although some issues, like no exFAT/NTFS support and maybe others). It's based on SODP and thus it would have the issues that plagued CarbonROM in the past (before switching to stock binaries). One such example would be "no sound in calls" (you cannot hear or be heard when calling, which rendered the phone useless as a phone).

Or you can look at Project Treble which is currently being actively developed. It allows you to flash a GSI, which will provide you with a wide range of options. Beware that it's still SODP-based and would probably have some, if not all, the usual issues with SODP based ROMs, and from the looks of it, you can't use it as a daily driver yet as there are some major issues, notably the "may sleep dead" [sic] one. I think it means when the screen locks, there's a chance that the screen would not turn back on and you'll have to restart the phone.