How do you get your phone to recognize that you can perform an update? For my 3XL, 4a, and now 4a 5G the updates were never available so I had manually push each update and then re-root.
Howto - Root your bramble with Magisk
- Thread starter Voodoojonny
- Start date
My mistake. I came from a Oneplus 8 where you get OTAs even when rooted. I had to download the factory image for bramble, and patch the boot image with magisk manager. I then repacked the magisk boot image inside the images zip. Finally I just removed the -w flag in flash-all.bat and flashed the factory images in fastboot
To answer my own question:
Can you just flash the patched boot.img without losing data?
Answer: yes.
Can you just flash the patched boot.img without losing data?
Answer: yes.
Last edited:
Hi everyone,
I just got my bramble today. And yes, the first thing I did, was unlocking the bootloader and rooting it.
Here I tell you how I did it.
You need a ADB/Fastboot suite installed and this rooted kernel.
Section 1: Unlocking your Bootloader Unlocking your Bootloader will erase all your data - so best case is a brandnew and clean bramble...:
1. Go to settings - "About phone" and tip 6 times on "Build number" until you see "congratulations, you are a developer"
2. Go to settings - "System", tip on "Advanced" and then on "Developer options". Now you can see "OEM unlocking". Enable it (yes it warns you about security and stuff... It´s your choice - I did it).
3. Install Adb and Fastboot suite and scroll to the adb-folder inside your windows explorer and when you are there, copy the rooted boot.img to your adb-folder (you need that for section 2).
4. Right click + shift on the white background of your adb-folder "open power shell window here"
5. Reboot your bramble holding vol- and you will enter the fastboot screen. Connect your bramble to your pc and type in your power shell window the following code:
and hit enterCode:./fastboot flashing unlock
6. Your bramble will warn you that unlocking your bootloader is insecure! And one really important thing again: This will format all your data
7. Use the vol-/vol+ keys to accept and violla, you unlocked your Bootloader!
Section 2: flashing the patched boot.img
1. Luckily you already copied the rooted boot.img to your adb folder and you are still in your power shell window. That gives you everything for 2.
2. type the following in your power shell window:
3. hit enter andCode:./fastboot flash boot boot.img
4. reboot to system (yes it has to be setup again since your data got wipede) and install Magisk manager after setting up your system
Congrats, your system is now rooted with Magisk!
The minimal fastboot suite you linked (1.4) is unfortunately outdated, and returns errors now. You will need 1.43 available here https://minimaladbandfastboot.com/windows/minimal-adb-and-fastboot-v1-4-3/ ... or at least I did, lol
Updated to December this morning. ADB sideloaded the OTA reboot. I patched the boot image for re-root.
Would you mind making a step by step for this?
Yes no worries. I'm working now but can post up later. I did mine the longer way bc I'm always unable to just do the flash- all way ...
Update steps for me -
Download OTA full image for your variant latest December from https://developers.google.com/android/ota#bramble place in my ADB folder on PC
Download Factory Image for your variant latest December from https://developers.google.com/android/images#bramble unzip on PC then search for the boot.img in folder and transfer to phone. Use Magisk to patch the boot.img and once completed place back on PC in ADB folder.
Get your phone now in stock recovery mode [ Android guy on back with red exclamation ] Next, hold down the power button and press the volume up button, and you will be in recovery mode. Use the volume down button to highlight apply update from ADB and press the power button to select it.
Now I ran the terminal command [I'm on Mac] ./adb sideload bramble-ota-rq1a.201205.011-4817ffa4.zip depending which file you loaded would be similar to mine.
Once it finishes reboot phone and you will be on new update.
Now to root again - back into bootloader mode
./fastboot flash boot boot.img. [ or name of the patched from Magisk ]
Download OTA full image for your variant latest December from https://developers.google.com/android/ota#bramble place in my ADB folder on PC
Download Factory Image for your variant latest December from https://developers.google.com/android/images#bramble unzip on PC then search for the boot.img in folder and transfer to phone. Use Magisk to patch the boot.img and once completed place back on PC in ADB folder.
Get your phone now in stock recovery mode [ Android guy on back with red exclamation ] Next, hold down the power button and press the volume up button, and you will be in recovery mode. Use the volume down button to highlight apply update from ADB and press the power button to select it.
Now I ran the terminal command [I'm on Mac] ./adb sideload bramble-ota-rq1a.201205.011-4817ffa4.zip depending which file you loaded would be similar to mine.
Once it finishes reboot phone and you will be on new update.
Now to root again - back into bootloader mode
./fastboot flash boot boot.img. [ or name of the patched from Magisk ]
Anyone on Verizon?
I don't see a Verizon friendly December 2020 version: https://developers.google.com/android/images#bramble
I don't see a Verizon friendly December 2020 version: https://developers.google.com/android/images#bramble
Did you get it flashed? So the patched boot image bootloop
Try flashing the patched boot image right after flashing OTA without rebooting
Thanks.. I had no issues flashing it even after reboot...
How do I use Magisk to patch the boot.img from the Dec update?
I transfered the boot.img to my phone, used Magisk to patch the file in my phone, but I get the following error
- Device platform: arm64-v8a
- Copying image to cache
2034+0 records in
2034+0 records out
2082816 bytes (1.9 M) copied, 0.004488 s, 443 M/s
1410+1 records in
1410+1 records out
1443916 bytes (1.3 M) copied, 0.003859 s, 357 M/s
- Unpacking boot image
Parsing boot image: [/data/user_de/0/com.topjohnwu.magisk/install/boot.img]
HEADER_VER [0]
KERNEL_SZ [11574685]
RAMDISK_SZ [369099084]
SECOND_SZ [0]
EXTRA_SZ [3]
PAGESIZE [0]
NAME []
CMDLINE []
CHECKSUM [0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000]
Floating point exception
- Checking ramdisk status
- Stock boot image detected
Add entry [init] (0750)
- Patching ramdisk
Patch with flag KEEPVERITY=[true] KEEPFORCEENCRYPT=[true]
Create directory [.backup] (0000)
Add entry [.backup/.magisk] (0000)
Dump cpio: [ramdisk.cpio]
Parsing boot image: [/data/user_de/0/com.topjohnwu.magisk/install/boot.img]
HEADER_VER [0]
KERNEL_SZ [11574685]
RAMDISK_SZ [369099084]
SECOND_SZ [0]
EXTRA_SZ [3]
PAGESIZE [0]
NAME []
CMDLINE []
CHECKSUM [0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000]
Floating point exception
- Repacking boot image
! Unable to repack boot image!
! Installation failed
How do I patch the boot.img correctly? Thanks.
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