[rom] [twrp] sm-t290 & sm-t295 [discussions & help thread]

[V0latyle]

Sorry. Bad morning so I apologize. Many are getting very confused. Can we please clean thread up some? I may have said it wrong yes. Really tired of this butthurt mentality the past few years. No worries. Ill post no more

Again, if you see issues, please report them for the moderator staff to handle. There's no excuse to be rude yourself.

You're welcome to participate in this community, just be civil and respectful to others.

 

[J.Michael]

@timba123 If you used more carriage returns I would recommend your post for inclusion in the first post of this thread as "current best practice".

I believe it covers all of the important points. O also believe it is essentially a rewrite of John Wu's "Magisk installation" instructions, reordered to be read in a straight line, focusing on Samsung, and with TWRP replacing the Magisk-patched recovery.

Maybe XDA already has a forum consisting of "documents", rather than discussion threads. I haven't seen it, and I have enough trouble finding things that I will not be exploring any time soon.

 

[V0latyle]

@timba123 If you used more carriage returns I would recommend your post for inclusion in the first post of this thread as "current best practice".

I believe it covers all of the important points. O also believe it is essentially a rewrite of John Wu's "Magisk installation" instructions, reordered to be read in a straight line, focusing on Samsung, and with TWRP replacing the Magisk-patched recovery.

Maybe XDA already has a forum consisting of "documents", rather than discussion threads. I haven't seen it, and I have enough trouble finding things that I will not be exploring any time soon.

I've never quite figured out how to patch Samsung recovery in Magisk. I find it easier to simply flash TWRP, then install Magisk through TWRP. Since the factory AP files are extremely large, it takes forever to transfer to the device and patch in Magisk. TWRP by itself is much smaller.

Do you know of a way to remove competing SU binaries? I keep running into an issue with LineageOS because of the preinstalled SU.

 

[J.Michael]

I've never quite figured out how to patch Samsung recovery in Magisk. I find it easier to simply flash TWRP, then install Magisk through TWRP. Since the factory AP files are extremely large, it takes forever to transfer to the device and patch in Magisk. TWRP by itself is much smaller.

Do you know of a way to remove competing SU binaries? I keep running into an issue with LineageOS because of the preinstalled SU.

I know nothing of Lineage, let alone of SU binaries. I would have assumed that preinstalled SU was like preinstalled Magisk -- you have to wait for new release of Lineage ROM, you can't update it.

When I installed Magisk, there was no TWRP for this device. I don't remember it being too much trouble to copy AP.tar to tablet, or magisk-patched.tar back to PC. I think on my fourth or fifth go-around I created a smaller .tar containing only boot, recovery, and vbmeta. I think my main interest was in getting Odin to run faster.

At the time I was told Magisk *had* to be installed in recovery. I'm still not clear whether Magisk can be installed in boot, or TWRP is being patched by Magisk. No idea whether Magisk will ever patch boot if given a .tar file. I think when I was doing it I found no difference in the patched file whether Recovery Mode was checked or not.

I'm still running the Android 9 (Pie) that came on the tablet. Maybe a newer kernel makes life easier.

 

[V0latyle]

I know nothing of Lineage, let alone of SU binaries. I would have assumed that preinstalled SU was like preinstalled Magisk -- you have to wait for new release of Lineage ROM, you can't update it.

When I installed Magisk, there was no TWRP for this device. I don't remember it being too much trouble to copy AP.tar to tablet, or magisk-patched.tar back to PC. I think on my fourth or fifth go-around I created a smaller .tar containing only boot, recovery, and vbmeta. I think my main interest was in getting Odin to run faster.

At the time I was told Magisk *had* to be installed in recovery. I'm still not clear whether Magisk can be installed in boot, or TWRP is being patched by Magisk. No idea whether Magisk will ever patch boot if given a .tar file. I think when I was doing it I found no difference in the patched file whether Recovery Mode was checked or not.

I'm still running the Android 9 (Pie) that came on the tablet. Maybe a newer kernel makes life easier.

I don't know how to create custom tar files, or how to extract images from the AP tar. Magisk does patch the boot image on my Pixel device but I'm not sure exactly what's different for Samsung devices, what with the discrete recovery and inability to flash specific partitions via bootloader (which for all intents and purposes doesn't exist on Samsung devices).

 

[J.Michael]

I don't know how to create custom tar files, or how to extract images from the AP tar. Magisk does patch the boot image on my Pixel device but I'm not sure exactly what's different for Samsung devices, what with the discrete recovery and inability to flash specific partitions via bootloader (which for all intents and purposes doesn't exist on Samsung devices).

I don't understand why you say bootloader does not exist on Samsung. I thought BL.tar was bootloader. And don't most devices have a discrete recovery?

I use tar under Linux. I don't quite trust the Windows version in UnxUtils. You probably have a tar in Android.

To make a smaller tar file, at a command prompt type

tar tvf AP.tar
tar xvf AP.tar boot.img recovery.img vbmeta.img
tar cvf miniAP.tar boot.img recovery.img vbmeta.img

The first command prints the TOC, Table of Contents.
The second extracts three files from AP.tar -- it does not change AP.tar.
The third creates a new tar file consisting of the specified files.

The only thing tricky is you have to identify each file by its exact name, you can't use wildcards. (You can when you are building a new tar, because it's the shell filling in the names. When extracting, you have to write the name exactly as it is recorded in the tar file.) So if the tar contains "boot.img.lz4", you have to say that.

I don't know if, when the Magisk manager app is told to patch a tar file, it assumes "recovery" is where Magisk is to be injected, or it figures it out each time. But, when it is injecting Magisk into recovery, it also "patches" boot and vbmeta. Those other two may not be "patch to inject code", but they are at least "patch to change signature" -- maybe just "patch to clear the flag that says expect a signature".

 

[Talich52]

I use tar under Linux. I don't quite trust the Windows version in UnxUtils.

I don't have Linux and use Windows. And to work with firmware files I use TotalCommander. I open the AP.tar.md5 file with it and delete all unnecessary files, leaving only boot.img & vaultkeeper.img. Next, you need to rename the file as AP.tar and copy it to the device and patch it with the latest Magisk program. The recovery file for T290/T295 is not needed, Magisk is not put in the recovery section, it is enough to patch the boot.img & vk.img kernel, and then flash through ODIN.
In another option, TWRP is installed and multidisabler is used from it (+ format data is made) and Magisk.zip itself.
In the first option, it is assumed that custom recovery is not needed, or you can install it later ...

 

[V0latyle]

I don't understand why you say bootloader does not exist on Samsung.

Samsung devices don't have a bootloader mode where partitions can be directly flashed. On my Pixel 5, I can flash any partition from bootloader, including bootloader itself.

I thought BL.tar was bootloader. And don't most devices have a discrete recovery?

If you mean a discrete recovery partition, no - on A/B devices, recovery lives in the boot image, and bootloader calls either normal kernel or the recovery kernel. A discrete recovery is not needed because of the two slots - while system is running on one slot, OTA packages can be extracted and written to the "other" slot (note: by "slots" here I mean A/B, where each critical system partition has a duplicate: /boot_a and /boot_b, /system_a and system_b)

This obviates the need for discrete recovery, because once the inactive slot has been updated, system calls a reboot to that slot, and upon successful boot, marks it active. The only interruption to the user experience is the reboot. See seamless system updates

Contrast that with Samsung, who has obstinately refused to follow this model; to update, the device must reboot to recovery mode, then unpack and flash the update, preventing use of the device until the update has completed.

I use tar under Linux. I don't quite trust the Windows version in UnxUtils. You probably have a tar in Android.

To make a smaller tar file, at a command prompt type

tar tvf AP.tar
tar xvf AP.tar boot.img recovery.img vbmeta.img
tar cvf miniAP.tar boot.img recovery.img vbmeta.img

The first command prints the TOC, Table of Contents.
The second extracts three files from AP.tar -- it does not change AP.tar.
The third creates a new tar file consisting of the specified files.

The only thing tricky is you have to identify each file by its exact name, you can't use wildcards. (You can when you are building a new tar, because it's the shell filling in the names. When extracting, you have to write the name exactly as it is recorded in the tar file.) So if the tar contains "boot.img.lz4", you have to say that.

I don't know if, when the Magisk manager app is told to patch a tar file, it assumes "recovery" is where Magisk is to be injected, or it figures it out each time. But, when it is injecting Magisk into recovery, it also "patches" boot and vbmeta. Those other two may not be "patch to inject code", but they are at least "patch to change signature" -- maybe just "patch to clear the flag that says expect a signature".

So would we need to patch the boot image in Magisk, then repackage it and flash it in AP in Odin? Seems complicated - I'd rather flash TWRP to /recovery, then install Magisk through TWRP

I don't have Linux and use Windows. And to work with firmware files I use TotalCommander. I open the AP.tar.md5 file with it and delete all unnecessary files, leaving only boot.img & vaultkeeper.img. Next, you need to rename the file as AP.tar and copy it to the device and patch it with the latest Magisk program. The recovery file for T290/T295 is not needed, Magisk is not put in the recovery section, it is enough to patch the boot.img & vk.img kernel, and then flash through ODIN.
In another option, TWRP is installed and multidisabler is used from it (+ format data is made) and Magisk.zip itself.
In the first option, it is assumed that custom recovery is not needed, or you can install it later ...

Oh okay that answers my above question.

 

[g.jimenez09]

I need a vendor_boot.img file for the SM-T290.