FAQ:
1.
INSTALLING ORANGEFOX RECOVERY FROM STOCK MIUI RECOVERY (adb/fastboot method):
You need a PC for this. If you do not have a PC, or access to a PC, then you are stuck!
1. Install adb, fastboot, and the relevant USB drivers onto your PC
2. Install the Mi Flash tool onto your PC
3. Download the OrangeFox zip file to your phone, and to your PC
4. Extract recovery.img from the OrangeFox zip file, and copy recovery.img to your PCs adb directory
5. Reboot your phone into fastboot/bootloader mode
6. Unlock your bootloader
7. Open up a command line window on your PC
8. Change to the adb directory on your PC
9.
Hotboot OrangeFox by running the command:
Code:
fastboot boot recovery.img
10. After OrangeFox has booted up, check that everything is working eg, that it has mounted the data partition successfully, and that the touchscreen works.
11. Select Install, then find and select the OrangeFox zip, and swipe to install it
12. After installation, the phone will automatically reboot into OrangeFox
13. If your installed ROM is MIUI, then you can optionally go to the OrangeFox menu and install magisk or supersu
14. Enjoy!
2.
SETTING UP MIUI OTA:
1. Download the most up-to-date release of OrangeFox Recovery
2. Download a full MIUI ROM that will be the basis of your future MIUI experience, and copy it to your phones storage
3. Flash the OrangeFox Recovery zip with your current custom recovery (or follow the steps in the thread for installing from adb/fastboot)
4. Reboot into OrangeFox Recovery (this will have happened automatically if you flashed the OrangeFox zip)
5. Go to the OrangeFox settings, and enable these MIUI OTA settings -
a. Support MIUI incremental OTA
b. Include system in OTA survival
c. Incremental OTA signature verification
d. Aggressive stock recovery deactivation
e. Disable DM-Verity
7. Go to the Wipe menu, and wipe data, cache, and dalvik
8. Flash your full MIUI ROM. After the ROM is flashed, OrangeFox will start the "OTA_BAK" process, which will backup your system and boot partitions into the
/sdcard/Fox/OTA directory. You must
NOT delete any of the files in the /sdcard/Fox/OTA directory. If you do, then incremental OTA updates
will most definitely fail.
9. Reboot your phone, and start to use your phone normally
10. When MIUI notifies you that there is an update, download the update,
using the MIUI updater app, and allow it to reboot automatically to OrangeFox
11. OrangeFox will install the update automatically (this might take several minutes)
12. OrangeFox will reboot the phone automatically upon completion of the installation of the MIUI OTA update
13. After this, you will not need to flash a full ROM any more - just follow the steps in #10 above
14. If you want to move to a completely different version/build of MIUI, then you will first need to clean-flash the full ROM of that MIUI build, as described above.
3.
RETURNING TO A MIUI ROM FROM A TREBLE ROM:
A. Treble ROMs use MIUIs
cust partition for their vendor image. This process removes the Xiaomi proprietary files that are necessary for MIUI to run. These files must be restored, otherwise MIUI will not work properly.
B. For this purpose, the cleanest and easiest way to return to MIUI from a Treble ROM is to
flash a full fastboot MIUI ROM, using the
Mi Flash tool.
C. If you did not create a backup of your MIUI
cust partition to MicroSD or USB-OTG
before installing a Treble ROM, then you
must use the method just described above.
D. If you DID create a backup of your MIUI cust partition (in the newest versions of OrangeFox, this would be the vendor partition it points to the same location as cust) to MicroSD or USB-OTG, then you can use OrangeFox to install MIUI when coming from a Treble ROM -
but you have to take certain steps:
1) Backup your internal memory to an external device (eg, MicroSD, USB-OTG, or your PC).
DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!
2) Copy the latest stable MIUI ROM to your MicroSD or USB-OTG storage
3) Boot OrangeFox
4) Make sure that OrangeFox can read your MicroSD or USB-OTG storage, and can see the MIUI ROM that you copied there. This is the ROM that you will install in the steps below.
5) Select the Wipe menu and wipe
everything - system, dalvik, cache, vendor, etc (except MicroSD/USB-OTG)
6) Format data (
format -
not wipe) - you
will lose all the contents of your internal memory after doing this
7) Reboot OrangeFox - you will see a message saying No OS installed
- just swipe to reboot OrangeFox
8) Restore the backup of your MIUI cust partition (in the latest releases of OrangeFox, this will need to be restored to the "vendor" partition)
9) Flash your MIUI ROM
10) Reboot to system, and
wait for a long time ...
11) When ready, restore your backup of your internal memory from your external storage device.
4.
FLASHING ROMS:
Flashing a ROM is usually a straightforward process. You can either do a "clean" flash, or a "dirty" flash.
First things:
1. Do NOT flash a ROM in a queue with other zips. Always flash a ROM
on its own, and when flashing is completed, reboot OrangeFox,
before doing anything else.
2. If you ever wipe the /vendor partition (when you are preparing to flash a ROM), then you must first reboot OrangeFox -
before flashing the ROM (that is - if you want OrangeFox to patch dm-verity and forced-encryption successfully).
3. Please
note that, if you do not follow
both of the above instructions, and you encounter problems afterwards (which you
definitely will), I will not answer any questions.
A.
"Clean flashing" (Strongly recommended)
1) Backup your applications, settings, SMS messages, call logs, etc
Do NOT skip this step.
2) Bootup OrangeFox Recovery
3) Select "Wipe"
4) Swipe to reset to defaults (this will restore the installed ROM to a known state, and will remove apps/settings that might be incompatible with the ROM that you wish to install)
5) Return to the main OrangeFox menu
6) Select "Install"
7) Choose the ROM that you want to flash
8) Swipe to flash.
9) Reboot OrangeFox recovery - before doing anything else - so that any changes to partitions/filesystems done by flashing the new ROM will take full effect
10) Flash whatever else you might want to flash (eg, GAPPs, magisk, etc)
11) Reboot your device
12) Wait for
a long time while the new ROM sets itself up (go and make a cup of tea!)
13) Enjoy
B.
"Dirty flashing" (NOT recommended)
1) Bootup OrangeFox Recovery
2) Select "Install"
3) Choose the ROM that you want to flash
4) Swipe to flash
5) Wipe cache and dalvik
6) Reboot OrangeFox recovery -
before doing anything else - so that any changes to partitions/filesystems done by flashing the new ROM will take full effect
7) Flash whatever else you might want to flash (eg, GAPPs, magisk, etc)
8) Reboot your device
9) Enjoy
NOTE:
Dirty flashing a ROM is NOT recommended. It can cause all kinds of random problems. Always choose to "clean flash"
5.
"YOUR SYSTEM HAS BEEN DESTROYED" scenarios:
A) If you have one of these, then, yes, you might be in deep trouble! But this has
nothing to do with OrangeFox. It is rather a result of
your decisions and what you have chosen to do, or to flash.
B) For possible solutions,
Google is your friend.
C)
Salient advice: next time, look very carefully
before flashing anything. It is
your responsibility to ascertain and
completely understand, a) what you are installing, b) what instructions it is giving to the recovery, c) what it will do as part of the installation, and d) what it will do after the installation. Otherwise, there
will be tears.
6.
Other useful downloads/information:
7.
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