New carrier unlocked GSM M8
- Thread starter theandies
- Start date
So I think I ready to do this but have a couple of questions.
I've not messed with Fastboot at all and was not feeling too comfortable flashing the firmware. After reading up on Fastboot I think I'm confident I do it right.
Fastboot is almost the same as adb except that the phone is booting into the bootloader (Fastboot USB mode) instead of Android. Correct?
Fastboot commands are entered in the CMD prompt just as you do with adb (USB cable connected of course).
So here is what I'm going to do (from this thead https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=67123738&postcount=7 my progress in RED below):
Thanks :good:
I've not messed with Fastboot at all and was not feeling too comfortable flashing the firmware. After reading up on Fastboot I think I'm confident I do it right.
Fastboot is almost the same as adb except that the phone is booting into the bootloader (Fastboot USB mode) instead of Android. Correct?
Fastboot commands are entered in the CMD prompt just as you do with adb (USB cable connected of course).
So here is what I'm going to do (from this thead https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=67123738&postcount=7 my progress in RED below):
Anything I'm missing or need to add or not doing right? Is the firmware file correct for my phone?
Thanks :good:
My responses below in blue font. Your red font was wiped out when I cut/paste. But I think you can follow along, anyway:
Last edited:
Something not right I think. It says it will take about 10 minutes but it's been stuck on 28% for a half hour. Should I just let it go or flash the RUU like I did before as suggested by xunholyx below? How do I stop the procedure if I want to try this way?
That worked for me before.
Thanks
That worked for me before.
Thanks
Well I flashed the new firmware without issues. I had issues with the RUU .exe not working so I flashed the RRU via external SD card as before with no problems. After setting up my google stuff etc I tried mobile data but it still would not connect with the nextgenphone APN (see my previous post above). I entered the other APN (previous post) and it worked just not on 4G LTE only on HSPA. I was going to post getvar all but forgot to take out my external SD card, DUH, and right now I'm going though the RUU process again because the SD still has the RUU file on it.
Any thoughts as to what to do next and until I post my getvar. Do I have to use the .exe process to make it work on 4G? When downloading that file I had to do it a couple of time before it downloaded completely and used the mirror site because the first site would not download at all. Should I download it again?
One more question. I can live with HSPA as I don't stream much video but would I be racking up roaming data charges since it seems the ATT network must see my phone as a Euro phone?
Thanks
Any thoughts as to what to do next and until I post my getvar. Do I have to use the .exe process to make it work on 4G? When downloading that file I had to do it a couple of time before it downloaded completely and used the mirror site because the first site would not download at all. Should I download it again?
One more question. I can live with HSPA as I don't stream much video but would I be racking up roaming data charges since it seems the ATT network must see my phone as a Euro phone?
Thanks
I think I just figured out my problem. The RUU I flashed via external SD was the Euro RUU as it is the RUU I used before finding out I needed the new firmware. Now I'm looking for the .502 RUU. Anyone have a link to help me find it faster?
Current getvar info:
It still says .401 Any Ideas?
Current getvar info:
It still says .401 Any Ideas?
Last edited:
DONE! SUCCESS!
I guess when I downloaded the RUU utility something was corrupted even thought it downloaded without any errors from the mirror site.
I re-flashed the firmware and ran the RUU utility and everything installed without errors. After reboot I got the AT&T boot animation and when finally in Android the 4G indicator in the notification area without having to setup the APN at all but still would not connect via mobile data. Entered the APN information from AT&T's wireless website found on the internet and now everything works as it should.
For others that need it:
AT&T APN Settings
I think I'll ride this ROM for a while because I'm tired of setting up my google account and restoring my data.
A BIG thanks to xunholyx and especially redpoint73 who showed great patience to all my badgering and PM's.
I guess when I downloaded the RUU utility something was corrupted even thought it downloaded without any errors from the mirror site.
I re-flashed the firmware and ran the RUU utility and everything installed without errors. After reboot I got the AT&T boot animation and when finally in Android the 4G indicator in the notification area without having to setup the APN at all but still would not connect via mobile data. Entered the APN information from AT&T's wireless website found on the internet and now everything works as it should.
For others that need it:
AT&T APN Settings
I think I'll ride this ROM for a while because I'm tired of setting up my google account and restoring my data.
A BIG thanks to xunholyx and especially redpoint73 who showed great patience to all my badgering and PM's.
You flashed the wrong RUU. You flashed the Euro one that xunholyx linked you to, which installed the Euro (401) firmware again (thus the 6.12.401.4 version number in getvar) and reversing everything you did when you flashed the AT&T firmware (6.20.502.5).
Now everything is working, since you successfully flashed the AT&T (6.20.502.5) firmware and matching RUU.
---------- Post added at 09:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:27 AM ----------
Stuck that long indeed means an issue. It just happens sometimes, and restarting it will sometimes work. Or you may need to download the RUU again, as you found out. Yes, corruption during download also just happens sometimes.
Stopping the RUU is scary, since it tells you explicitly not to interrupt it. But when it's stuck/frozen, you really have no choice.
---------- Post added at 09:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:31 AM ----------
That's a really old APN. I think you have an really old SIM. Which would explain why the default APN (ATTphone - which is the current one they use) as well as the "nextgenphone" APNs don't give you 4G. You may consider going into an AT&T store, and they can give you a new SIM for no charge.
Do you actually get the icon that says "4G LTE" or does it just say "4G"?
You're quite welcome, glad to see it worked out, and happy to help. You weren't badgering, I just prefer to help on the forum rather than PM as I noted.
I figured that out after I posted the screenshot so I stayed up to try again. I'm still learning the phone aspects of modding as I stated all my modding execpt for simple rooting has been done on tablets. I've always been a little apprehensive about doing a lot with my phones as I need a phone more than a tablet in day-to-day life.redpoint73 said:
DUDE! You have no idea!redpoint73 said:
Before I stopped it I just kept thinking I just threw $180 bucks down the toilet. I was practically jumping up and down when it booted into the bootloader after that. Not sure yet as at the house sometimes I don't get LTE service. If it stays on just 4G where I know I get LTE service I'll head down and get a new SIM and yes it's an old one so you're probably right about itredpoint73 said:
One thing I noticed this morning is it had shutdown. I use my phone as my alarm clock and it was dead (glad it's my day off) when I woke up. I turn off auto-updates so it didn't download stuff all night after the updates. I thought it said it was about 30% when I went to bed but I was so tired I may have looked at it wrong. Hope something isn't wrong with the battery life now.
I'm pretty sure you won't get LTE (even where available) on the "cingular" APN with an old SIM. If you find that to be the case, get a new SIM (as suggested) and I also think you'll need to change to one of the "newer" APNs (attphone or nextgenphone) in order to get LTE.
Keep in mind that on the stock AT&T ROM, if the signal icon just says "4G" it just means HSPA+; thanks to the marketed gimmicks of the US carriers saying this qualifies as "4G". You need to have the "4G LTE" icon for it to really mean LTE. On unbranded (non-US carrier) ROMs, it will more appropriately say H+, LTE, etc.
This happened to me occasionally on the M8. Not often, but maybe one every few months or so. It would shutoff for no reason, with plenty of battery, and usually during the night. Others have reported similar. A bit disconcerting since you use your phone as an alarm clock, I know.
It is a little bit suspicious that this happened right after flashing firmware, RUU, etc. I don't have any definite reason to be suspicious (no known issue like this related to RUU, etc.). So hopefully just a coincidence.
Thanks,
My original M8 showed 4G LTE most of the time and I'm using the same SIM card. If I never see LTE in the next week I'll just go get another one.
I just finished charging my phone and am now monitoring the battery. On the old FW/ROM the battery life was fine. We'll see.
EDIT - Since this phone is already S-off do I still have to unlock the bootloader, root etc. to flash custom ROM's and recoveries? Now that I've got my wind back and see just how much crap the stock AT&T rom has in it I want to install a de-bloated stock AT&T Marshmallow ROM with Sense.
My original M8 showed 4G LTE most of the time and I'm using the same SIM card. If I never see LTE in the next week I'll just go get another one.
I just finished charging my phone and am now monitoring the battery. On the old FW/ROM the battery life was fine. We'll see.
EDIT - Since this phone is already S-off do I still have to unlock the bootloader, root etc. to flash custom ROM's and recoveries? Now that I've got my wind back and see just how much crap the stock AT&T rom has in it I want to install a de-bloated stock AT&T Marshmallow ROM with Sense.
Last edited:
No. You shouldn't need to unlock the bootoader. S-Off gives you access to the partitions that an unlocked bootloader does, plus all of the rest of the partitions as well.
New Problem
Battery life is crap. I went to bed with 63% woke up with 6%. Either something is wrong with the firmware/stock ROM or I have multiple app suckers.
Should I redo everything or just go with a different ROM? I really want to be on MM and Sense (Always enjoyed sense) as I got used to it with my old M8 and really like it. Any suggestions on a good MM sense based ROM.
Since you said "Shouldn't need to" does that mean you don't know for sure (I'm not bashing as I have shown I don't know **** and I try to be very through before modding my devices AND I really appreciate all the help I receive from everyone) should I go ahead and try or just unlock, root etc? If I go ahead and try is there a possibility of problems or will it just not work and boot up what I already have?
I'll have to live with this crap batter life for the next 4 days as I'm working and I work 12 hour night shift so I pretty much work and sleep. That gives all you experts time to think about it.
Thanks as usual
EDIT - In 7 hours while I was asleep the batter went from 81% to 34%. That's 6.7% an hour without doing anything with the phone. WiFi and mobile data on. Battery saver on. All unneeded apps either uninstalled or disabled. Auto-update turned off.
Now, should I just fastboot flash the firmware and then the RUU again or try another ROM?
Last edited:
Looking for a stock Marshmallow/Sense based de-bloated AT&T ROM. Any suggestions?
Remember this phone came S-off.
So I was clearing my cache suggested in the battery thread and I expected to see the red triangle that indicates locked recovery but instead it booting into the android recovery screens. Does this mean I can go ahead and flash TWRP then start flashing ROM's without rooting etc.? I'm under the impression that if I can flash TWRP then ROMs in the state my phone is in now that the ROM (depending on which ROM is flashed) will come with root access?
I hope I'm closer to the finish line than I think. ';[;'
Two more 12 hour work nights and then I can play with this. Any wisdom is appreciated.
So I was clearing my cache suggested in the battery thread and I expected to see the red triangle that indicates locked recovery but instead it booting into the android recovery screens. Does this mean I can go ahead and flash TWRP then start flashing ROM's without rooting etc.? I'm under the impression that if I can flash TWRP then ROMs in the state my phone is in now that the ROM (depending on which ROM is flashed) will come with root access?
I hope I'm closer to the finish line than I think. ';[;'
Two more 12 hour work nights and then I can play with this. Any wisdom is appreciated.
I believe locked/relocked bootloader will prevent installation of a custom recovery (TWRP) even with s-off, but I'm not sure. S-off on this device doesn't turn off security for everything as much as it did on previous devices.
OP can always try to flash TWRP (with locked bootloader) and if it works, it works. If it says "permission denied" then the bootloader needs to be unlocked.
I can't say for certain, as I've never actually locked/relocked the bootloader once s-off. It's not needed to do so in order to flash firmware/RUU (s-off bypasses the requirement), so I've never felt there was a valid reason to relock the bootloader.
---------- Post added at 09:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:06 AM ----------
You can try to recalibrate the battery meter by holding power+vol up+vol down. Or there are also apps (Battery Watchdog) which can tell you if an app is causing excessive drain, wakelocks, etc.
EDIT: I see you've tried the battery meter recalibration with much improvement, as posted here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2765663
One thing to note, you should let the phone "settle in" after such a recalibration, or flashing RUU, by charging to 100, and letting discharge to 10-20% at least once. After RUU, etc. the battery meter hi/low flags need to be reset in order to get a decent battery % reading. Although your issues seem to extend further than the simple "settling in" of the battery meter.
---------- Post added at 09:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:09 AM ----------
I would actually suggest a non-AT&T ROM. Meaning, not based on the stock AT&T ROM. Reason being, I can't stand all the bloat and branding associated with AT&T, and don't need any of it. It also doesn't need to be based on AT&T ROM, to work on their network. Any of the ROMs in the "international" development sections will work. I've used S.ROM, LeeDroid, ICE, and others with fine results.
Another good option, is the US Developer's Edition stock ROM. The Dev Edition was intended to work on AT&T's network, and is basically the unbranded HTC ROM. So none of the AT&T bloat.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-one-m8/development/rom-stock-unlocked-developer-sense-7-t3262894
I have heard of some of the AT&T bloat apps causing massive battery drain for some folks. So a custom ROM, or the Dev Ed ROM, is not a bad place to start troubleshooting the battery issue.
Last edited:
Thanks, I'll give flashing TWRP (which version should I be using?) a try without doing anything to the bootloader and see if it works with just s-off. It will give us all a good data point for the future not that the M8 has much more future .
If it doesn't work then I'll unlock the BL through the htcdev method, root etc.
Using the battery calibration instructions is how I found I can get into recovery on this phone. As I said I was expecting to see the red triangle when going through the clear cache instructions but recovery loaded fine and I was able to use the recovery menu to clear the cache.
The reason I want a de-bloated stock ROM is I really enjoy Sense. Are the ROMs you suggested Sense based? I guess I can live with straight Android as that is what I was running on my TF700 before it died. EDIT - I see the ROM you suggested is Sense based. I'll give that a try! :good:
Sorry I'm so late to the M8 modding party but before I didn't want to mess with my phone as the rooting/unlocking etc. was still maturing when I got my first M8 and didn't want to brick my brand new phone in 2014. I then got a tablet and went down that road so I didn't really think about modding my M8 too much. Now that I have a new one (and my tablet is dead) I want to get into the sandbox. The M8 seems a little more temperamental than the only other phone I've modded in the htc Vivid.
.If it doesn't work then I'll unlock the BL through the htcdev method, root etc.
Using the battery calibration instructions is how I found I can get into recovery on this phone. As I said I was expecting to see the red triangle when going through the clear cache instructions but recovery loaded fine and I was able to use the recovery menu to clear the cache.
The reason I want a de-bloated stock ROM is I really enjoy Sense. Are the ROMs you suggested Sense based? I guess I can live with straight Android as that is what I was running on my TF700 before it died. EDIT - I see the ROM you suggested is Sense based. I'll give that a try! :good:
Sorry I'm so late to the M8 modding party but before I didn't want to mess with my phone as the rooting/unlocking etc. was still maturing when I got my first M8 and didn't want to brick my brand new phone in 2014. I then got a tablet and went down that road so I didn't really think about modding my M8 too much. Now that I have a new one (and my tablet is dead) I want to get into the sandbox. The M8 seems a little more temperamental than the only other phone I've modded in the htc Vivid.
Last edited:
There was someone on our M9 thread that was having issues that were solved by unlocking the bootloader, so I'm guessing you will have to as well. Earlier HTC models (as redpoint said) and now the HTC 10 do not need the bootloader unlocked to flash TWRP and custom ROMs, they only need S-Off. Sorry for the misdirection from my earlier postThanks, I'll give flashing TWRP (which version should I be using?) a try without doing anything to the bootloader and see if it works with just s-off. It will give us all a good data point for the future not that the M8 has much more future
If it doesn't work then I'll unlock the BL through the htcdev method, root etc.
Using the battery calibration instructions is how I found I can get into recovery on this phone. As I said I was expecting to see the red triangle when going through the clear cache instructions but recovery loaded fine and I was able to use the recovery menu to clear the cache.
The reason I want a de-bloated stock ROM is I really enjoy Sense. Are the ROMs you suggested Sense based? I guess I can live with straight Android as that is what I was running on my TF700 before it died. EDIT - I see the ROM you suggested is Sense based. I'll give that a try! :good:
Sorry I'm so late to the M8 modding party but before I didn't want to mess with my phone as the rooting/unlocking etc. was still maturing when I got my first M8 and didn't want to brick my brand new phone in 2014. I then got a tablet and went down that road so I didn't really think about modding my M8 too much. Now that I have a new one (and my tablet is dead) I want to get into the sandbox. The M8 seems a little more temperamental than the only other phone I've modded in the htc Vivid.
Unlocking your bootloader is a fairly easy process but it will wipe your phone, so back up any photos and such that you don't want to lose first.
Thanks,
I think I'll just go ahead and unlock it since it's so easy and couldn't hurt. What is the latest version of TWRP I should flash once I get it unlocked?
Here is what is on the phone right now:
From settings - Software number 6.20.502.5
If you need more SW information let me know and I'll post it as soon as I can.
The good thing about having a brand new phone is I don't have a lot of user data on it so wiping is not a big deal right now. Once I get all the mods etc. I like then I'll start installing all my favorite apps then I can just nandroid backup as necessary when playing the flashing game.
I've been reading up in various threads on what and how to do stuff and think I understand most of it. Please come back and check this thread from time to time as I might have more questions.
Thanks!!!!
I think I'll just go ahead and unlock it since it's so easy and couldn't hurt. What is the latest version of TWRP I should flash once I get it unlocked?
Here is what is on the phone right now:
From settings - Software number 6.20.502.5
If you need more SW information let me know and I'll post it as soon as I can.
The good thing about having a brand new phone is I don't have a lot of user data on it so wiping is not a big deal right now. Once I get all the mods etc. I like then I'll start installing all my favorite apps then I can just nandroid backup as necessary when playing the flashing game.
I've been reading up in various threads on what and how to do stuff and think I understand most of it. Please come back and check this thread from time to time as I might have more questions.
Thanks!!!!