[guide] [twrp] [fire tv] [prevent all bricking guide] [read before rooting]

[Skel40]

This guide will show you the prerequisites for your unlocked Fire TV device including (4K Mantis), (HD Tank), etc. It's always important to know not to backup both the vendor and vendor image in TWRP because I was affected by it on two Fire TV's that don't have factory images unlike the main android phone in which has factory images (LG, Samsung, etc.) Ok the main point here is to warn you guys to NOT backup the vendor and vendor images since they make the Fire TV device brick and unbootable regardless what prerooted rom you flash, what you wipe in recovery, factory resetting the whole device WILL NOT fix this problem. Always backup system, boot, data only and you should be fine. Although there's an issue with the restoration process as well rebooting me to TWRP after a successful backup restoration, there's a simple fix for that. Flash a prerooted rom and you're good to go! If somebody in the XDA community for Fire TV devices reach out to me on showing us how to flash the vendor.img and other important files in fastboot mode with a working iso that can support fastboot functionality for Fire TV when you get into these issues. If you do end up backing up both vendors and restoring it as a TWRP backup, it wipes system components of your device which make your device stay on the Amazon screen (HD Tank) firetv (4K Mantis). Please take note with this issue so you aren't affected by this and ask questions if needed. We also need a more stable TWRP recovery image for Fire TV Stick 4K without vendor, vendor image, system image in the backup when backing up your device and other important bugs that need fixing (APPLIES on all recent Fire TV recoveries) They're very unstable and cause a ton of problems which cannot be currently resolved in this moment in time.

 

[Sus_i]

This guide will show you the prerequisites for your unlocked Fire TV device including (4K Mantis), (HD Tank), etc. It's always important to know not to backup both the vendor and vendor image in TWRP because I was affected by it on two Fire TV's that don't have factory images unlike the main android phone in which has factory images (LG, Samsung, etc.) Ok the main point here is to warn you guys to NOT backup the vendor and vendor images since they make the Fire TV device brick and unbootable regardless what prerooted rom you flash, what you wipe in recovery, factory resetting the whole device WILL NOT fix this problem. Always backup system, boot, data only and you should be fine. Although there's an issue with the restoration process as well rebooting me to TWRP after a successful backup restoration, there's a simple fix for that. Flash a prerooted rom and you're good to go! If somebody in the XDA community for Fire TV devices reach out to me on showing us how to flash the vendor.img and other important files in fastboot mode with a working iso that can support fastboot functionality for Fire TV when you get into these issues. If you do end up backing up both vendors and restoring it as a TWRP backup, it wipes system components of your device which make your device stay on the Amazon screen (HD Tank) firetv (4K Mantis). Please take note with this issue so you aren't affected by this and ask questions if needed. We also need a more stable TWRP recovery image for Fire TV Stick 4K without vendor, vendor image, system image in the backup when backing up your device and other important bugs that need fixing (APPLIES on all recent Fire TV recoveries) They're very unstable and cause a ton of problems which cannot be currently resolved in this moment in time.

Just a few thoughts...

First, the Fire Stick gen. 2 called 'tank' hasn't got a vendor partition at all.
Second, in case of a firmware down- or upgrade, the 4k stick called 'mantis' needs both, the system and the vendor partition, flashed with twrp. Both images are included in the prerooted rom and also in the stock update bin's

Messing arround with TWRP and wiping the hell out of the EMMC (without any clue) isn't recommended
But of course, for both sticks are stock firmware packages aviable! The url's were already posted in the corresponding threads.

The TWRP image is stable, same as the builds for other devices. Yeah, TWRP it isn't perfect, but to say 'it's very unstable and cause a ton of problems' is somewhat of fake news

At least, I saw no one has voted and/or replied to your thread for now... may be you could include a third row to the poll asking 'If you think this guide is utter sh*t, vote this one'
You see, I don't want to be rude, but I think with a third option in the poll you may get an idea what other users think about it... lets say as a feedback, I hope you get me right.

All in all, my opinion is your 'guide' is misleading, incorrect and full of false informations.

 

[Skel40]

Just a few thoughts...

First, the Fire Stick gen. 2 called 'tank' hasn't got a vendor partition at all.
Second, in case of a firmware down- or upgrade, the 4k stick called 'mantis' needs both, the system and the vendor partition, flashed with twrp. Both images are included in the prerooted rom and also in the stock update bin's

Messing arround with TWRP and wiping the hell out of the EMMC (without any clue) isn't recommended
But of course, for both sticks are stock firmware packages aviable! The url's were already posted in the corresponding threads.

The TWRP image is stable, same as the builds for other devices. Yeah, TWRP it isn't perfect, but to say 'it's very unstable and cause a ton of problems' is somewhat of fake news

At least, I saw no one has voted and/or replied to your thread for now... may be you could include a third row to the poll asking 'If you think this guide is utter sh*t, vote this one'
You see, I don't want to be rude, but I think with a third option in the poll you may get an idea what other users think about it... lets say as a feedback, I hope you get me right.

All in all, my opinion is your 'guide' is misleading, incorrect and full of false informations.

Ok man TWRP is really unstable. I've done tests with backups and other stuff what I'm saying is that backing up the vendors isn't recommended due to undergoing problems with bricking. TWRP automatically wipes the vendors when you restore it and makes your device unbootable. Same goes with backing up the 3 partitions as well like I said causes a bootloop back to TWRP until you flash a rom over it. Ok you're talking about the prerooted stock rom on here. Where's the original packages with a filename ending with a .bin? There's not even a flash tool available at the moment either in which is required to be booted into download mode to get the official stock rom up and running so again. I know you're trying to not be rude or anything it's a matter of test in progress. Here's the best way to put it to you. Ok so if I bricked my LG device and disabled oem which is necessary to enable when unlocking the bootloader, I obviously need a flash tool like LG Bridge that can find the official rom for my device and restore it fully back to factory defaults without the unlocked bootloader with TWRP and the need of rooting. After it's done flashing, it's fully back to normal like I first bought it so what I'm asking here is if it were possible to get a tool for Fire TV, I think it would help a lot to get out of these situations for the average Amazon user who wants to revert back to 100% stock.

 

[Sus_i]

Ok man TWRP is really unstable. I've done tests with backups and other stuff what I'm saying is that backing up the vendors isn't recommended due to undergoing problems with bricking. TWRP automatically wipes the vendors when you restore it and makes your device unbootable. Same goes with backing up the 3 partitions as well like I said causes a bootloop back to TWRP until you flash a rom over it. Ok you're talking about the prerooted stock rom on here. Where's the original packages with a filename ending with a .bin? There's not even a flash tool available at the moment either in which is required to be booted into download mode to get the official stock rom up and running so again. I know you're trying to not be rude or anything it's a matter of test in progress. Here's the best way to put it to you. Ok so if I bricked my LG device and disabled oem which is necessary to enable when unlocking the bootloader, I obviously need a flash tool like LG Bridge that can find the official rom for my device and restore it fully back to factory defaults without the unlocked bootloader with TWRP and the need of rooting. After it's done flashing, it's fully back to normal like I first bought it so what I'm asking here is if it were possible to get a tool for Fire TV, I think it would help a lot to get out of these situations for the average Amazon user who wants to revert back to 100% stock.

You never find official tools for fire devices, your best bet is TWRP. Besides that you have a full working 'hacked' fastboot too. Hacked means that fastboot is able to run any commands and flash every image to whatever partition you like.

If you look thru the 4k prerooted thread, you find an stock update bin renamed to zip, it's stored on mega... This one is the newest aviable stock rom as of today. There may be some older ones too, hosted from amz (cloudfrnt link).
In case you flash that renamed bin file, system and vendor is full stock. A TWRP factory reset or wipe data gets rid of any crap (and magisk addons).
Just to be safe, you may flash the latest kamakiri zip file behind that. It updates the TZ image as well.
If the stick doesn't work after that, something is damaged... electrostatic discharge or something like that.

Additional, if you want a complete unroot, you have to extract the boot.img, the LK + TZ + PL images from the stock.bin... and flash this images via hacked fastboot. Details were a few times mentioned in the 4k unbrick/root thread.

PS: I take only full backups with twrp, haven't got any restore failure.
The only thing that could cause failures like that, is if someone use an unpowered USB Hub together with a whatever usb-storage for the backup/restore.

 

[Skel40]

You never find official tools for fire devices, your best bet is TWRP. Besides that you have a full working 'hacked' fastboot too. Hacked means that fastboot is able to run any commands and flash every image to whatever partition you like.

If you look thru the 4k prerooted thread, you find an stock update bin renamed to zip, it's stored on mega... This one is the newest aviable stock rom as of today. There may be some older ones too, hosted from amz (cloudfrnt link).
In case you flash that renamed bin file, system and vendor is full stock. A TWRP factory reset or wipe data gets rid of any crap (and magisk addons).
Just to be safe, you may flash the latest kamakiri zip file behind that. It updates the TZ image as well.
If the stick doesn't work after that, something is damaged... electrostatic discharge or something like that.

Additional, if you want a complete unroot, you have to extract the boot.img, the LK + TZ + PL images from the stock.bin... and flash this images via hacked fastboot. Details were a few times mentioned in the 4k unbrick/root thread.

PS: I take only full backups with twrp, haven't got any restore failure.
The only thing that could cause failures like that, is if someone use an unpowered USB Hub together with a whatever usb-storage for the backup/restore.

How do I get fastboot to detect properly? I've already ran the exploit on both Fire TV's with the 4K root guide, adb works but fastboot doesn't seem to work. I made sure fastboot was installed properly and it is. I may need the Fire TV Stick 4K drivers for fastboot to get this working. Any ideas?

 

[Sus_i]

How do I get fastboot to detect properly? I've already ran the exploit on both Fire TV's with the 4K root guide, adb works but fastboot doesn't seem to work. I made sure fastboot was installed properly and it is. I may need the Fire TV Stick 4K drivers for fastboot to get this working. Any ideas?

In TWRP is an option to boot into unlocked/hacked fastboot.

No, you don't need any firestick drivers, since there are none.
If your PC doesn't see your fastboot device, the fastboot version is too old (there is a bug in the older fastboot sources). Try to use at least ubuntu 18.04 and run this:

sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3 python3-serial adb fastboot
sudo systemctl stop ModemManager
sudo systemctl disable ModemManager

If you use the fireISO, that won't work. Instead try this:

pacman -Sy
pacman -Sy fastboot

Of course you need to set up a wifi connection infront of the update.

 

[Skel40]

In TWRP is an option to boot into unlocked/hacked fastboot.

No, you don't need any firestick drivers, since there are none.
If your PC doesn't see your fastboot device, the fastboot version is too old (there is a bug in the older fastboot sources). Try to use at least ubuntu 18.04 and run this:

sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3 python3-serial adb fastboot
sudo systemctl stop ModemManager
sudo systemctl disable ModemManager

If you use the fireISO, that won't work. Instead try this:

pacman -Sy
pacman -Sy fastboot

Of course you need to set up a wifi connection infront of the update.

Thanks so much man! I successfully got my two Fire TV's back up and running, I should've reedited this "guide" as a troubleshooting q and a post since there's like no reason to post something useless on here.

 

[is0xxx]

Hi,

I have a couple questions about this. Recently rooted two Fire TV Sticks 3. Thx for that!

When i did a TWRP backup with it's default settings, all is fine.

* System Image
* Vendor Image
* Data (exl storage)
* Boot

After, i selected ALL partitions ( incl System/Vendor). Doing this (tested 2 times) results in not booting properly anymore. Very slow loading...and stuck on the Firetv logo...

It tries to boot but it just just doesn't work anymore?! I tested this 2x to see if this was the cause, it must be?!

Restored an original stock ROM and all is fine again. Anyone know what the problem is? A bug or something?

Another question is about the data.

When one fully tweaked the Fire TV Stick. Does a "FULL" backup restores all installed apps also? or like "Data (exl storage) it's stock again, and stays ROOTED?

Thx anyway


edit:

There's no new update on this. It still works. What did you backup? Backing up the system, and vendor only bricks the device. Its always important to backup only the system image, vendor image, data and boot.

Seems correct.

 

[Sus_i]

Hi,

I have a couple questions about this. Recently rooted two Fire TV Sticks 3. Thx for that!

When i did a TWRP backup with it's default settings, all is fine.

* System Image
* Vendor Image
* Data (exl storage)
* Boot

After, i selected ALL partitions ( incl System/Vendor). Doing this (tested 2 times) results in not booting properly anymore. Very slow loading...and stuck on the Firetv logo...

Your full backup filled up all the free space...

Does a "FULL" backup restores all installed apps also? or like "Data (exl storage) it's stock again, and stays ROOTED?

Doesn't make much sense to backup system, vendor and boot, because the backup takes an image of the partitions... which is really big in size. If you want to restore all those partitions, you can just flash a stock rom (+ magisk) again.

If you like to backup your sticks data, apps and so on, just backup data, done.

 

[is0xxx]

@Sus_i

Ah, both make sense...My bad