[GUIDE] Unlock/Root/Safetynet for Pixel 4a

[andyxo]

What timing just came back to add an update! I had to swap my sim for the day because couldnt focus on it, but last night i hooked it up and used the Chrome Flash Tool - took a bit, but everything came right back up (sigh of relief). So back running, but havent re-tired Magisk yet but will give it some testing later this afternoon!

that sound issue would be frustrating! Good luck!

Hey, thanks

So today ended up installing Magisk Manager 8.0.2 which ended me up with Stable Magisk 22.1 (not 23.0 which was the goal) and redid the whole boot patch rigamarole with the stock RQ3A.2106.05.005 boot file. Have rebooted my device now a bunch of times and my sound problem seems to have gone away (for the interim).

So after that have now have reinstalled DiamondJohn's recommended Android 11 V4A file (which he has linked to many places) and that's working too (well it was working before too when I was actually able to boot properly). Have rebooted now again a few times and am cautiously optimistic...

So I guess the moral of the story is that for those who are rooting their 4a (4G) phones for the first time with RQ3A.2106.05.005 and Magisk 23.0, keep on eye out on your sounds (cuz you might not have any after reboots). I enabled Touch Sounds under Sound & Vibration as an easy check by slapping the home key after each reboot.

And of course this will all prbly change once Magisk 23.x gets released or when we get a new OTA... then we will have new problems haha

 

[XDAUser1234]

Hey, thanks

So today ended up installing Magisk Manager 8.0.2 which ended me up with Stable Magisk 22.1 (not 23.0 which was the goal) and redid the whole boot patch rigamarole with the stock RQ3A.2106.05.005 boot file. Have rebooted my device now a bunch of times and my sound problem seems to have gone away (for the interim).

So after that have now have reinstalled DiamondJohn's recommended Android 11 V4A file (which he has linked to many places) and that's working too (well it was working before too when I was actually able to boot properly). Have rebooted now again a few times and am cautiously optimistic...

So I guess the moral of the story is that for those who are rooting their 4a (4G) phones for the first time with RQ3A.2106.05.005 and Magisk 23.0, keep on eye out on your sounds (cuz you might not have any after reboots). I enabled Touch Sounds under Sound & Vibration as an easy check by slapping the home key after each reboot.

And of course this will all prbly change once Magisk 23.x gets released or when we get a new OTA... then we will have new problems haha

so you ended up with straing/new(ish) Magisk now right? no more Magisk Manager PLUS Magisk, but just straight Magisk 22.1? Do we still need the canary version?

 

[andyxo]

so you ended up with straing/new(ish) Magisk now right? no more Magisk Manager PLUS Magisk, but just straight Magisk 22.1? Do we still need the canary version?

Well, I read in this thread (ya, a lot to read) people started reporting successful rooting with stable Magisk 21.0 and since v21.0 is a single standalone app yup, no more manager.

After installing the older Manager 8.0.2 yesterday I did update only the app to the latest v23.0 but did not update the Magisk itself from 22.1 just in case coz of my sound booting problems. The app shows Magisk installed 22.1 with an "Update" blue square next to it which I'm not gonna mess with ;-)

 

[DiamondJohn]

so you ended up with straing/new(ish) Magisk now right? no more Magisk Manager PLUS Magisk, but just straight Magisk 22.1? Do we still need the canary version?

But first test with the latest stable Magisk. @andyxo has issues with the latest, but its (23.0 and app 23.0) running perfectly fine on mine. NB: I do not try to get SafetyNet passing on my device.

 

[XDAUser1234]

But first test with the latest stable Magisk. @andyxo has issues with the latest, but its (23.0 and app 23.0) running perfectly fine on mine. NB: I do not try to get SafetyNet passing on my device.

will be testing combinations through the day -- right now all i seem to get is FAILED (remote: Failed to write to partition Not Found) -- ergh!

 

[XDAUser1234]

That's not a current fastboot because it doesn't know how to turn 'boot' into 'boot_a' or 'boot_b' based on the current slot.

If you can't upgrade to the current fastboot, you can try one of these options.

1. Find your current slot and boot that:
fastboot getvar current-slot # will be 'a' or 'b'
fastboot flash boot_a magisk_patched.img # or boot_b

2. Boot the patched image and get Magisk Manager to do the permanent installation.
fastboot boot magisk_patched.img
# use Magisk Manager to install (direct)

Option #2 got me rooted . Booted the patched image, and as suggested used Magisk (23.0) do the direct install. Good to go with that trick! .

 

[camaro322hp]

Thought I'd report my experience in case it helps any newcomers like me.

Just picked up a P4a since my old phone finally died after 3+ years. Went through the rooting process as described in the first post using build rq3a.210705.001, stable Magisk v23.0, and SafetyNet fix v1.2.0. Everything seems to be working so far and TiBu is reporting root access. Magisk is also reporting successful SafetyNet.

I'll report back if I've missed anything that's not working. One thing I did have to do was manually load Android USB drivers to get my phone recognized in Fastboot mode, but maybe that's to be expected.

Thanks to @Zackptg5 for posting this guide, and for all the helpful comments throughout the thread. This is probably the smoothest rooting process I've had so far, but I am coming over from Sony devices.

 

[Makishima]

Could I get a definitive guide on how to update to the newest security update whilst rooted? I'm currently running the April update and latest Magisk canary and reading this thread I'm none the wiser what I should actually do to update... My system says I'm up to date so I can't get OTA and then reflash Magisk. Should I disable my modules, grab the latest boot.img, patch it and flash, is that enough, or do I need to install the whole zip?

 

[a1291762]

Could I get a definitive guide on how to update to the newest security update whilst rooted?

Google doesn't seem to offer OTAs to people who are rooted. Maybe not even if your bootloader is unlocked? I have never been offered an OTA even after unrooting.

So you have to install a full OTA package manually, or install a factory image (after removing the -w flag) in order to update to the new image. You get these direct from Google and they're around 2Gb in size. Pros and cons to each.

Then you have to root again.

I prefer to patch boot.img myself but if you trust people, there are usually patched boot.img files floating around. Make sure you get one that matches your version and Magisk though.

I use factory images because it's simpler to get boot.img out. I patch boot.img with Magisk manager then boot the patched image before patching the real boot with Magisk manager.

But there's probably half a dozen different ways people do it...

 

[DiamondJohn]

Could I get a definitive guide on how to update to the newest security update whilst rooted? I'm currently running the April update and latest Magisk canary and reading this thread I'm none the wiser what I should actually do to update... My system says I'm up to date so I can't get OTA and then reflash Magisk. Should I disable my modules, grab the latest boot.img, patch it and flash, is that enough, or do I need to install the whole zip?

Google doesn't seem to offer OTAs to people who are rooted. Maybe not even if your bootloader is unlocked? I have never been offered an OTA even after unrooting.

So you have to install a full OTA package manually, or install a factory image (after removing the -w flag) in order to update to the new image. You get these direct from Google and they're around 2Gb in size. Pros and cons to each.

Then you have to root again.

I prefer to patch boot.img myself but if you trust people, there are usually patched boot.img files floating around. Make sure you get one that matches your version and Magisk though.

I use factory images because it's simpler to get boot.img out. I patch boot.img with Magisk manager then boot the patched image before patching the real boot with Magisk manager.

But there's probably half a dozen different ways people do it...

I use Viper & VancedYT which is installed via Magisk. If you boot without Magisk running, you lose all your config & settings for these apps.

I manually flash my updates, and found this command line option to skip the boot, allowing me to flash the modified boot image, and then reboot.
fastboot --skip-reboot update image-sunfish-rq3a.210705.001.zip

Of course the big thing is the "-skip-reboot", and the above was for the July patch.

One way I have not tried myself, is downloading the smaller OTA image and flashing only that (ie not the full image). I think its "side loaded", the instructions are where you download it.

 

[Makishima]

I use Viper & VancedYT which is installed via Magisk. If you boot without Magisk running, you lose all your config & settings for these apps.

I manually flash my updates, and found this command line option to skip the boot, allowing me to flash the modified boot image, and then reboot.
fastboot --skip-reboot update image-sunfish-rq3a.210705.001.zip

Of course the big thing is the "-skip-reboot", and the above was for the July patch.

One way I have not tried myself, is downloading the smaller OTA image and flashing only that (ie not the full image). I think its "side loaded", the instructions are where you download it.

So you don't disable the modules, you just flash the zip on top of your normal setup and then the patched boot image?

EDIT: Tried it and got this

Device version-bootloader is 's5-0.3-7062598'.
Update requires 's5-0.3-7241803'.

fastboot: error: requirements not met!

 

[DiamondJohn]

So you don't disable the modules, you just flash the zip on top of your normal setup and then the patched boot image?

Yep.

But I do have to come clean, It has come undone and ended in tears (ie boot loop) at least once. However, just yesterday (I shutdown every night and boot every morning), I booted and didn't log into (ie unlock) my phone for a but of time, and when I did, it ended in a boot loop (stuc on something like "device is starting"). My phone is highly customised. So I think its all my other stuff ,and not skipping a non magisk enabled boot. That has worked at least twice.

PS: Disabling the modules would be irrelevant if you do not flash a magisk enabled boot image.

 

[Makishima]

Yep.

But I do have to come clean, It has come undone and ended in tears (ie boot loop) at least once. However, just yesterday (I shutdown every night and boot every morning), I booted and didn't log into (ie unlock) my phone for a but of time, and when I did, it ended in a boot loop (stuc on something like "device is starting"). My phone is highly customised. So I think its all my other stuff ,and not skipping a non magisk enabled boot. That has worked at least twice.

PS: Disabling the modules would be irrelevant if you do not flash a magisk enabled boot image.

Well, it doesn't sound like the reason for this is skipping the reboot in the first command. It's pretty much dirty flashing so I guess it's expected, but I really don't want to format everything again... I also used Viper and Vanced (though the latter is no longer installed through Magisk I think) plus a few more mods so I might have similar problems.

Anyways, now I have to find out how I can update the bootloader first. Oh wait. I just did your command but not the flash-all.sh first... Will update with news.

EDIT: Managed to flash it. Took me hours to make platform-tools work on Fedora, the ones provided by the distro are way too out of date. Didn't try the skip-reboot method but had no problem with viper nor vanced. Thanks everyone.

 

[DiamondJohn]

Well, it doesn't sound like the reason for this is skipping the reboot in the first command. It's pretty much dirty flashing so I guess it's expected, but I really don't want to format everything again... I also used Viper and Vanced (though the latter is no longer installed through Magisk I think) plus a few more mods so I might have similar problems.

Anyways, now I have to find out how I can update the bootloader first. Oh wait. I just did your command but not the flash-all.sh first... Will update with news.

EDIT: Managed to flash it. Took me hours to make platform-tools work on Fedora, the ones provided by the distro are way too out of date. Didn't try the skip-reboot method but had no problem with viper nor vanced. Thanks everyone.

Regarding Vanced. It is "installed" via the manager app that explicitly creates the magisk module. So the daily running IS through magisk.

Just an FYI, this is the log of the steps I used to do my last flash. Its windows shell and I manually run each line. I do not run it as a single "flash all" and hence there are no wait steps, I simply wait.

Spoiler: FYI

adb kill-server

PATH=%PATH%;"%SYSTEMROOT%\System32";"C:\Java\x86\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools";
cd /d G:\flash_stock

fastboot devices
fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-sunfish-s5-0.3-7241803.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader

fastboot flash radio radio-sunfish-g7150-00047-210319-b-7220401.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader

fastboot --skip-reboot update image-sunfish-rq3a.210705.001.zip

fastboot reboot-bootloader

fastboot devices
fastboot flash boot magisk_patched-23000_UjTik.img

fastboot reboot

adb kill-server

 

[DozenMadder]

I'm having difficulty at the "fastboot flash boot magisk_patched.img" stage of this process.
I'm using a new laptop so I installed fresh platform-tools and usb drivers (in the last couple days).
My p4a (carrier unlocked) came with RQ3A.210605.005 (June) and I unlocked the bootloader at this point.
Next I downloaded and adb sideloaded RQ3A.210705.001 (July) to be sure I had A11 on both slots.
Then I downloaded factory RQ3A.210705.001 and extracted root.img with the intention of patching it.

Here is where the trouble begins:
I can't remember what version of Magisk I installed first. Sorry, I've tried so many (both with and without updating).
They all produce a patched image but none have successfully flashed to the boot partition.
I keep getting the "partition not found" message. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

 

[DiamondJohn]

I'm having difficulty at the "fastboot flash boot magisk_patched.img" stage of this process.
I'm using a new laptop so I installed fresh platform-tools and usb drivers (in the last couple days).
My p4a (carrier unlocked) came with RQ3A.210605.005 (June) and I unlocked the bootloader at this point.
Next I downloaded and adb sideloaded RQ3A.210705.001 (July) to be sure I had A11 on both slots.
Then I downloaded factory RQ3A.210705.001 and extracted root.img with the intention of patching it.

Here is where the trouble begins:
I can't remember what version of Magisk I installed first. Sorry, I've tried so many (both with and without updating).
They all produce a patched image but none have successfully flashed to the boot partition.
I keep getting the "partition not found" message. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

It may be helpfull if you actually post ALL your shell commands and the responses you receive. It may just be simple obvious typo. For example, in your post you say "root.img" which should be "boot.img"

 

[a1291762]

I can't remember what version of Magisk I installed first.

Just run Magisk Manager and see? The version is the same.

They all produce a patched image but none have successfully flashed to the boot partition.
I keep getting the "partition not found" message. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Your fastboot is too old. Use a newer one (that understands "boot" to mean boot_a or boot_b, depending on the active slot), or use fastboot boot patched.img to temporarily get root and then use Magisk Manager to install (DIRECT) to make it stick.

 

[a1291762]

I manually flash my updates, and found this command line option to skip the boot, allowing me to flash the modified boot image, and then reboot.
fastboot --skip-reboot update image-sunfish-rq3a.210705.001.zip

Nice find. I was able to avoid booting up without Magisk using this.
Download the factory image.
Extract boot.img and push to the phone.
Use Magisk to patch it and pull back to the PC.
Change flash-all.sh to use --skip-reboot and not use -w.
Run it. Wait.
Get back to real fastboot: fastboot reboot-bootloader
Boot the patched image: fastboot boot patched.img
Use Magisk to install (direct).
(I know you can flash the image from fastboot but this way I can use Magisk to revert to stock without needing a PC).

 

[DozenMadder]

Just run Magisk Manager and see? The version is the same.



Your fastboot is too old. Use a newer one (that understands "boot" to mean boot_a or boot_b, depending on the active slot), or use fastboot boot patched.img to temporarily get root and then use Magisk Manager to install (DIRECT) to make it stick.

Sorry, I was unclear with my different versions statement. I installed and uninstalled many releases hoping for success.
I guess it doesn't matter now because your suggestion with temporary root worked flawlessly. Thanks a bunch!

 

[ReservedName]

nevermind