[EOL][RECOVERY][Android 8 / 9][Stock/SODP][XZ2/c/p, XZ3] TWRP [UNofficial]

[xarinatan]

Pllllllz don't use any xperifix/camerafix on the custom roms.

And yes, there is a TWRP for STOCK ROMs and a TWRP for SODP ROMs, because there are differences (in DTBO).

OREO TWRP's are on android file host in the ANDROID_8 root folder.

Xperifix is at the moment not PIE compatible as written in the latest xperifix news post about XZ2 compatibility.

In OREO you just give xperifix the magisk 18.1 zip file and it does everything for you. (Or install it manual as A/B, VENDOR).
Don't give it a twrp.img.

Just carefully follow the instructions and scarify goats to break the curse. :silly:

I can confirm that the stock firmware & camera works (I used it with the existenze rom for xz2 and xz2c) and since the end of april I use OmniROM (without problems).
Of course the camera is under constructions and I am excited if the OEMv10 may bring a camera update with the current development snapshot of the closed source camera drivers.

That was the official pie rom and like I said it worked before! I guess with the amount of ROM switching some other files got lost somewhere.
As for Omni, it seems like it doesn't like my NFC chip and occasionally seems to crash with opengapps (stock) installed.. I've been trying to get TWRP to work with my own compiled AOSP ROM, but I might just try put Stock on it again to the best of my abilities with your above instructions tonight, if not I'll probably invest in something like a google pixel 3 which also has a snapdragon 845, would be nice to compare the opensource experience with that one at least the build instructions seem pretty straightforward https://source.android.com/setup/build/building.html or perhaps a oneplus device or something non-waterproof with a waterproof case.. or a raspi 4 with screen/bat/4g and a bunch of ducttape until it's waterproof not like there's anything that's not made of glue these days anyway, except maybe the fairphones :cyclops:

thanks for those instructions though! I'll try them out tonight. and thanks for not turning your back on me because of my frustrated responses, I know I'm not an easy customer, but you gotta admit the smartphone world is more voodoo than logic with the amount of bugs and workarounds and bugs in workarounds and so forth

 

[MartinX3]

That was the official pie rom and like I said it worked before! I guess with the amount of ROM switching some other files got lost somewhere.
As for Omni, it seems like it doesn't like my NFC chip and occasionally seems to crash with opengapps (stock) installed.. I've been trying to get TWRP to work with my own compiled AOSP ROM, but I might just try put Stock on it again to the best of my abilities with your above instructions tonight, if not I'll probably invest in something like a google pixel 3 which also has a snapdragon 845, would be nice to compare the opensource experience with that one at least the build instructions seem pretty straightforward https://source.android.com/setup/build/building.html or perhaps a oneplus device or something non-waterproof with a waterproof case.. or a raspi 4 with screen/bat/4g and a bunch of ducttape until it's waterproof not like there's anything that's not made of glue these days anyway, except maybe the fairphones :cyclops:

thanks for those instructions though! I'll try them out tonight. and thanks for not turning your back on me because of my frustrated responses, I know I'm not an easy customer, but you gotta admit the smartphone world is more voodoo than logic with the amount of bugs and workarounds and bugs in workarounds and so forth

you could also just execute my build environment on github to build the stuff

No problem, you're welcome
Customer care is the hardest care. :silly:

 

[xarinatan]

I got a OnePlus 6. MAN what a difference!! Within a few hours I had compiled lineage on my own buildserver, had installed it + TWRP + opengapps on the device, and had not a SINGLE HICCUP OR CRASH OR HANG, despite me just trying whatever seemed intuitive, the camera is working flawlessly, NFC and NFC payments are working flawlessly, the fingerprint scanner is still as responsive as it was with the official ROM, it's a world of difference! Why is it so hard for Sony to get this done on a device with lesser specs (OLED, 4gb vs 8gb ram, 128gb storage, etc) that costs MORE?? If only they had put the effort they put into that ****ty DRM into the actual phone, they wouldn't have lost anything, and everyone would've been happier but oh well.
I haven't sold my XZ2 compact yet.. I don't think I'm going to get a reasonable amount of money back for it considering I paid 500+ for it and in its current state it's not even worth 150, so I guess I'll keep it around until the open device program actually finishes the software for the phone and just run my own AOSP until then.. At least it's sturdy, very well waterproofed and has a good battery life, that makes it a decent secondary phone for private things... but I'm never going to get over the fact that that 960FPS mode is gone and the special camera chip + its own RAM are never going to be used, JUST because Sony is too cheap to release the software for it to the public, even when others have already done so! greedy bastards. Nothing pisses me off more than buying things, only to find out you're not allowed to use them on your own terms. If I wanted an iPhone I'd BUY AN IPHONE. If I want to repurpose my car or phone or laptop to work as, I don't know, a ****ing toaster, then that's my right to do so! NOBODY tells me what to do with my things, unless they're not mine! Sony violated that trust by putting DRM in the hardware, so I'm not buying aaaanything from them until my XZ2 magically gets its 960FPS mode back IN AOSP. The hardware is there, there is absolutely no reason for it not to work, except pure cancerous greed, and I will not accept it. /rant

So with that out of the way... Thanks, I may take a look at your github later to see what changes you made to the AOSP to see if I can apply it to my own image as well. And Thanks for staying polite and helping me, really, your pointers have been the only thing that kept me from simply smashing the phone against a wall :silly:

 

[MartinX3]

I got a OnePlus 6. MAN what a difference!! Within a few hours I had compiled lineage on my own buildserver, had installed it + TWRP + opengapps on the device, and had not a SINGLE HICCUP OR CRASH OR HANG, despite me just trying whatever seemed intuitive, the camera is working flawlessly, NFC and NFC payments are working flawlessly, the fingerprint scanner is still as responsive as it was with the official ROM, it's a world of difference! Why is it so hard for Sony to get this done on a device with lesser specs (OLED, 4gb vs 8gb ram, 128gb storage, etc) that costs MORE?? If only they had put the effort they put into that ****ty DRM into the actual phone, they wouldn't have lost anything, and everyone would've been happier but oh well.
I haven't sold my XZ2 compact yet.. I don't think I'm going to get a reasonable amount of money back for it considering I paid 500+ for it and in its current state it's not even worth 150, so I guess I'll keep it around until the open device program actually finishes the software for the phone and just run my own AOSP until then.. At least it's sturdy, very well waterproofed and has a good battery life, that makes it a decent secondary phone for private things... but I'm never going to get over the fact that that 960FPS mode is gone and the special camera chip + its own RAM are never going to be used, JUST because Sony is too cheap to release the software for it to the public, even when others have already done so! greedy bastards. Nothing pisses me off more than buying things, only to find out you're not allowed to use them on your own terms. If I wanted an iPhone I'd BUY AN IPHONE. If I want to repurpose my car or phone or laptop to work as, I don't know, a ****ing toaster, then that's my right to do so! NOBODY tells me what to do with my things, unless they're not mine! Sony violated that trust by putting DRM in the hardware, so I'm not buying aaaanything from them until my XZ2 magically gets its 960FPS mode back IN AOSP. The hardware is there, there is absolutely no reason for it not to work, except pure cancerous greed, and I will not accept it. /rant

So with that out of the way... Thanks, I may take a look at your github later to see what changes you made to the AOSP to see if I can apply it to my own image as well. And Thanks for staying polite and helping me, really, your pointers have been the only thing that kept me from simply smashing the phone against a wall :silly:

Yeah, staying polite is not every time an easy task

I don't have hiccups too on my XZ2 with OmniROM.
Using it as daily driver
And what do you mean with "not use full ram"?
Ram is ram, the system recognizes it and uses it.
In my case 6GB for the Asian edition.

Since PIE you can use you camera after unlocking the phone.
You could also create a LineageOS with the stock firmware drivers.
Like for the OnePlus phones or the others, where no open devices project exist.
Sony is the only company doing open source stuff and creating hardware drivers for the devices compatible with AOSP.
Way less to hack to make them custom ROM compatible. Plus kernel upgrades (kernel 4.14 for all sodp xperias and for Android Q is under development).

The main thing OnePlus does better is advertising leading into more possible developers.
We just lack a LineageOS maintainer.
Since SODP xperias it isn't much work if you have already lineageOS device maintainer know how.
So everything you get with OnePlus isn't impossible with a SODP covered xperia
(At the moment starting with xperia x from may 2016) (yay, more than 3 years support)


BTW.
The SODP just focuses on stability instead of using every hack to squeeze the last 960fps. This may get achieved later in a clean way.
And I miss the IP rating and the sdcard reader on the OnePlus.

 

[mirhl]

960fps likely hooks into the special boinz algorithms and all, and those are competence of the closed japanese guys.
Though it's not like the hardware itself is protected *per se*. Putting aside that you are free to try to hack in aosp the stock blobs, nobody's stopping you from having your own driver with blackjack, hookers and why not even 480fps.

What actually do suck if any is loosing DRM for widevine l1 and hdcp. But guess what? You can backup and restore that on xperias. Not so much in most other phones that I can think of.

 

[xarinatan]

And what do you mean with "not use full ram"?
Ram is ram, the system recognizes it and uses it.
In my case 6GB for the Asian edition.

Not system RAM, the little bit of RAM that they put on top of the camera sensor to allow for the 960FPS 0.2s snapshot to work.
There's literally HARDWARE SUPPORT for 960FPS, it's not (just) some magical interpolation thing that happens, it's not even the only phone that has this feature, just it hasn't been ported to any opensource ROMs yet because ?????

Since PIE you can use you camera after unlocking the phone.

There's a difference between 'using the camera' and 'getting similar image quality to the original ROM', the latter of which applies to the Oneplus 6, whereas my XZ2c's camera is extremely buggy and looks even worse than my Z5c, which is quite an achievement considering how much the hardware has improved, but not an achievement I'd clap for :silly:

You could also create a LineageOS with the stock firmware drivers.
Like for the OnePlus phones or the others, where no open devices project exist.
Sony is the only company doing open source stuff and creating hardware drivers for the devices compatible with AOSP.
Way less to hack to make them custom ROM compatible. Plus kernel upgrades (kernel 4.14 for all sodp xperias and for Android Q is under development).

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate that there is an open device program at all, but it begs the question how much that's worth when you still have to insert a considerable blob of binaries after AOSP before the device will even boot just like with every other device, and even then there's so much.. hacks and workarounds and bs that you need to heed for or it just randomly won't work.. why isn't that the case with the Oneplus 6? which has the exact same snapdragon 845 SoC/platform at it's heart.. and sure, the Lineage build already includes the drivers for a lot of things, but so does Sony's AOSP; you have to include their github and download those dependencies to even compile it, otherwise it won't show up in lunch.

The main thing OnePlus does better is advertising leading into more possible developers.
We just lack a LineageOS maintainer.
Since SODP xperias it isn't much work if you have already lineageOS device maintainer know how.
So everything you get with OnePlus isn't impossible with a SODP covered xperia
(At the moment starting with xperia x from may 2016) (yay, more than 3 years support)

I'd love to try make a Lineage ROM for the XZ2c, I haven't tried it before, but with the amount of unpredictable voodoo that I've seen I'm not sure it'd be a pleasant experience.. everything from just setting up TWRP to installing opengapps took me far more effort than it took with any of my other SODP devices, and I really started doubting myself, but then when I got the Oneplus 6 the experience was just as pleasant as when I remember it from the older SODP devices, and I did not have to go to the website to invalidate my warranty, I did not have to type out some weird OEM unlock key, I did not get my DRM keys wiped because AFAIK the Oneplus6 does not HAVE such a thing. I could just dump the entire ROM from TWRP after I set that up and restore it afterwards if I wanted it back with all its official features, which seems entirely impossible with SODP devices in general.

And I miss the IP rating and the sdcard reader on the OnePlus.

Same! The hardware is definitely not as thoroughly waterproofed, and I would've certainly preferred a SD card slot over the second sim slot.. But with the difference in the opensource experience I can forgive them that, I'll buy a waterproof case or something, and 128GB NAND isn't bad either, twice as big as the largest xperia that I could find, so I don't think I'll run out of storage soon..

What actually do suck if any is loosing DRM for widevine l1 and hdcp. But guess what? You can backup and restore that on xperias. Not so much in most other phones that I can think of.

The moment I hit 'unlock bootloader' the DRM keys were wiped. Now I'm sure someone found some exploit that allowed them to bypass that and back it up before the wipe, but that's not exactly their official intent, so I wouldn't exactly 'credit' them with 'allowing you to keep your DRM', because they very obviously don't want you to keep your DRM..


Again I really want to press that I absolutely LOVE the fact they have an open devices program, that's exactly what made me go to them in the past with my Z, Z1c, and Z5c, but with the XZ2c I felt abandoned, the amount of hacks and bull**** you need to go through just to get that same opensource experience makes me feel like the higher up management made some really ****ty decisions, too much stuff broke with the DRM key removal, and I don't feel like DRM has a place in hardware to begin with (or anywhere but that aside), if I buy a 600 euro device then it is mine, if you'd try to put DRM in cars so they only take official certified headlights and tires so it'd stop working or void your warranty you'd get sued to hell, so I REALLY hope they improve that attitude, because until the full hardware in that device that I OWN works again, I will boycott them. I'm sorry, but that's just against my principles and I refuse to fund that kind of behavior, even if they're one of the few that actually have an open devices program with dedicated developers. I'm not saying everyone should do the same, but I feel violated at least to say, and I am not going to make that same mistake again until their DRM behavior changes.

 

[hgoldner]

Again I really want to press that I absolutely LOVE the fact they have an open devices program, that's exactly what made me go to them in the past with my Z, Z1c, and Z5c, but with the XZ2c I felt abandoned, the amount of hacks and bull**** you need to go through just to get that same opensource experience makes me feel like the higher up management made some really ****ty decisions, too much stuff broke with the DRM key removal, and I don't feel like DRM has a place in hardware to begin with (or anywhere but that aside), if I buy a 600 euro device then it is mine, if you'd try to put DRM in cars so they only take official certified headlights and tires so it'd stop working or void your warranty you'd get sued to hell, so I REALLY hope they improve that attitude, because until the full hardware in that device that I OWN works again, I will boycott them. I'm sorry, but that's just against my principles and I refuse to fund that kind of behavior, even if they're one of the few that actually have an open devices program with dedicated developers. I'm not saying everyone should do the same, but I feel violated at least to say, and I am not going to make that same mistake again until their DRM behavior changes.

Preach, brother. I have been making this very argument for years, starting when HTC on Verizon started making life impossible for those who wanted root access. My attitude has always been, "it's MY damn phone; I want to do with it what I want." Although I don't tend to root every handset anymore (confession, I usually have multiple handsets, and one of them is almost always rooted), your position is precisely mine, and while I fancy the notion of a rooted X2C Compact, there's no way I want to deal with the BS hurdles Sony has thrown up to this supposedly "open" device.

 

[MartinX3]

There always people complaining, regardless what you do.

I use only phones where I can get custom rom updates over a long time period.
I am very happy about my first time with a xperia smartphone and the possibilities.
For other vendors you are forced to use the stock firmware to create a custom rom.
Here you can choose between the stock firmware or the SODP AOSP firmware developed from scratch without hacks and focused on stability and free from bloatware.
Here you have the possibility to help as a volunteer and take part in which direction the SODP AOSP firmware gets developed.

About the stock DRM, yes, I hate it, too.
But Sony does move away from it.
They did weak it with Oreo and further with PIE (more features without DRM allowed get used) and the Xperia 1 is now the beginning of xperia smartphones with camera RAW support on stock, not only SODP AOSP based ROMs.
So it goes in the right direction and is very promising for the future.
Maybe on xperias starting with Q/R the DRM will disappear.

 

[xarinatan]

There always people complaining, regardless what you do.

I use only phones where I can get custom rom updates over a long time period.
I am very happy about my first time with a xperia smartphone and the possibilities.
For other vendors you are forced to use the stock firmware to create a custom rom.
Here you can choose between the stock firmware or the SODP AOSP firmware developed from scratch without hacks and focused on stability and free from bloatware.
Here you have the possibility to help as a volunteer and take part in which direction the SODP AOSP firmware gets developed.

About the stock DRM, yes, I hate it, too.
But Sony does move away from it.
They did weak it with Oreo and further with PIE (more features without DRM allowed get used) and the Xperia 1 is now the beginning of xperia smartphones with camera RAW support on stock, not only SODP AOSP based ROMs.
So it goes in the right direction and is very promising for the future.
Maybe on xperias starting with Q/R the DRM will disappear.

I am very glad to hear they're slowly moving away from it, it would make their 'open' device program much more open

But yes, people will always complain, it is how progress happens, if there's no complaints there's nothing to improve it's not necessarily a bad sign! it means people are using your device!

I do agree the open device program with its dedicated developers and community input is pretty unique and amazing to have, which is exactly why I've stayed with them for so long, but I simply didn't have a choice this time around, I needed a working phone with my own software on it, and I just couldn't get it working the way I did with all my other phones. It might even be that the phone itself is broken, but I can't exactly make use of the warranty anymore, which also bothers me because OnePlus seems to be willing to replace your device just fine.
All in all I was very disappointed and angry this time around with the experience I got, and I will stand by my words as long as they continue this behavior. So I do hope they will continue removing their hardware DRM

Preach, brother. I have been making this very argument for years, starting when HTC on Verizon started making life impossible for those who wanted root access. My attitude has always been, "it's MY damn phone; I want to do with it what I want." Although I don't tend to root every handset anymore (confession, I usually have multiple handsets, and one of them is almost always rooted), your position is precisely mine, and while I fancy the notion of a rooted X2C Compact, there's no way I want to deal with the BS hurdles Sony has thrown up to this supposedly "open" device.

There are definitely even worse smartphone OEMs to pick than Sony, Apple for instance haha, and perhaps Samsung and HTC and Huawei (who seems to have removed the unlock ability from their website entirely), and I will *never* buy devices from them as long as they think they can own the device AFTER you bought it.
It's not even that I care about root access, I usually have that disabled entirely for safety reasons, it's just that I don't trust the default software on any device, one of the first things I do when I buy a new computer is wipe it, and Lenovo's Superfish debacle and HP's exploitable system tools/drivers have firmly confirmed to me that this is the right thing to do (plus I run Linux/Arch/etc, couldn't care less about ConsoleOS 10).
Not to mention I would've never bought the Oneplus if I couldn't do that, because I know exactly how much China loves to put backdoors in things, hell even the USA does that (remember PATRIOT anyone? or what about the whole shadowbrokers dumb with exploits that the NSA kept to themselves for years? Entire reason WannaCry existed!), so while some people may call me paranoid, I think it's my right to be able to change the software on the computers that I buy, whether they fit in my pocket or not
Edit: and of course the fact that your device stops working as soon as the OEM stops supporting it of course, I think it's beyond strange that governments aren't calling a halt to that, the amount of electronics waste is massive, and this kind of scammy 'oh guess your device is useless now and you'll have to buy a new one<3' behavior when opensource roms could easily keep your device running for years after makes me want to run political campaigns.

 

[mirhl]

Sony policy for unlocked warranties depends on the local repair center, it has already been discussed lots of times.

And god, I don't know people pretending DRM was like locking you out of your hardware.
You are free free to reimplement that few special features as you wish.
For the remainder I'd rather have mainline or high quality code.

The only big caveat is HDCP/widevine keys, which are supposed by design to go deleted in *all* phones on unlock.. and which funnily could even be backuped here.

 

[levone1]

Anybody else with XZ2c try latest version (107)? I get touch screen error...

 

[levone1]

Fixed - https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=79891837&postcount=3894

 

[zarbix]

Hi @MartinX3 on reddit somebody mentioned you might be able to help with an XZ2C that has black / non working camera preview even after using xperifix?

---------- Post added at 01:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:54 PM ----------

Hi @MartinX3 on reddit somebody mentioned you might be able to help with an XZ2C that has black / non working camera preview even after using xperifix?

 

[MartinX3]

Hi @MartinX3 on reddit somebody mentioned you might be able to help with an XZ2C that has black / non working camera preview even after using xperifix?

---------- Post added at 01:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:54 PM ----------

Hi @MartinX3 on reddit somebody mentioned you might be able to help with an XZ2C that has black / non working camera preview even after using xperifix?

Yeah, please follow the first page of the TWRP thread.

 

[userx404]

Magisk

Hello!
Maybe someone can give me some support and give me a hint what i was doing wrong.
I have problems geting magisk to work.

I downloaded 2019-08-10_17-11-48_twrp_stock_xz2c_52.0.A.8.131.tar.gz from MartinX3 (updated to 131 before) and followed this post starting at III. Installing TWRP.
I had magisk manager installed before but unistalled it afterwards and tried a fresh run.

• from TWRP: install Magisk-v18.1.zip
• Reboot system
• from FX file manager: install MagiskManager-v7.3.2.apk
• reboot to twrp
• install permissive.zip
• back to system, checking Magisk Manager leads to following result:

Magisk is not recognized and no modules are found.
How can I get this fixed to get root again?
Thanks

 

[MartinX3]

Try installing the magisk 18.1 uninstaller, reboot the phone and install 18.1 again.

 

[userx404]

Try installing the magisk 18.1 uninstaller, reboot the phone and install 18.1 again.

That fixed my problem. Thank you.
If anybody runs into the same problem -> FILES

 

[DiMithras]

2 sim + sd

Have 2 sim + SD working, flash in twrp or just run the command:

adb shell
sed -i 's/pwdn=./pwdn=0/g' /vendor/build.prop

 

[WalrusInAnus]

Sorry for being offtopic, but I noticed some posts I don't fully understand.
Sony has open source ROM for XZ2C or something? That AOSP thing?

 

[MartinX3]

Sorry for being offtopic, but I noticed some posts I don't fully understand.
Sony has open source ROM for XZ2C or something? That AOSP thing?

The Sony Open Devices Projekt contains sony employees and volunteers
They mainline the devices into the linux kernel and create AOSP compatible device trees and hardware drivers out of the proprietary, closed source vendor stuff only smartphone vendors are allowed to see.
https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/