Unable to root Redmi 7A - with MIUI 11.0.6

[stormy1777]

Got a second Redmi 7A, I'm 99.99% certain it came with *global* 10.2.5 PCMMIXM (it was what ordered, and saw it too, pretty certain), decided to let it upgrade OTA, it picked 11.0.6 OTA, and it came to:

MIUI Global 11.0.6 PCMEUXM (notice the EU there), which, I'm assuming from this url: https://mirom.ezbox.idv.tw/en/phone/pine/

to be this one:

Redmi 7A – EEA Stable ROM
Lstest    V11.0.6.0.PCMEUXM(History)
MIUI     11
Android    9.0
Update at    2019-10-31 19:05:57
Changelog    Expand Official Link 
Recovery    miui_PINEEEAGlobal_V11.0.6.0.PCMEUXM_bcc90ca1df_9.0.zip
Filesize    1.5G
MD5    bcc90ca1df89a4f3d8cc7b9705a70d83

which is a bit confusing, it says Global, but has "EU" in the name.. in any event, flashed TWRP as per:

https://xiaomifirmware.com/guides-and-tips/how-to-install-twrp-and-magisk-root-on-redmi-7a/

choose the LRTeam version:

2a3296af05267160cba2891bff446203  TWRP-3.3.1-1003-REDMI7A-CN-wzsx150.img

seemed newest, all is great, it boots into TWRP recovery.. Next, trying to get Magisk on it, got the manager apk installed 7.4 all fine, it says 20.1 needs to be installed so...

unzipped the boot.img from above zip file, it has this md5, this is original , unmodified boot.img:

036d1b6c5a99e9417f8d3e98d5718368  boot_Global_V1106PCMEUXM.img

following this guide: https://romprovider.com/2019/01/create-pre-rooted-patched-boot-img-magisk/

Magisk successfully patched the boot.img on the same phone (running 11.0.6) and got this file:

dad219422c9302a460d4d2370adafb4f  magisk_patched_Global_V1106PCMEUXM.img

transferred to PC, attempted to flash:

c:\XiaomiADB\bin>fastboot flash boot magisk_patched_Global_V1106PCMEUXM.img
target reported max download size of 535822336 bytes
sending 'boot' (14914 KB)...
OKAY [  0.470s]
writing 'boot'...
OKAY [  0.190s]
finished. total time: 0.665s

c:\XiaomiADB\bin>fastboot reboot
rebooting...
finished. total time: 0.003s

Phone boots fine, however, magisk still says it needs to be installed...

in developer's options, the USB debugging is enabled, and boot loader is definitely unlocked, it says on splash screen and the OEM Unlocking is greyed out and says "bootloader already unlocked".

Also, attempted to flash boot image from within TWRP, selecting the above boot.img file and selecting the boot partition, flashes OK, however, after normal reboot, as if nothing happened, phone boots, but magisk is NOT installed (no root).

Is there anything missing in these steps? does anyone have a correctly patched 11.0.6 image with magisk in it from an 7A phone?

Only thing that appears as an "error" are these family of cmds to unlock boot loader:

fastboot oem unlock
...
FAILED (remote: Token verification failed, reboot the device)
finished. total time: 0.004s

however, i think that is normal/expected, since the bootloader is already unlocked.. able to flash twrp, etc.


Thanks so much for any ideas...

Stormy.

 

[stormy1777]

Forgot to mention that attempted to install Magisk 20.1 zip file downloaded by the app, from within TWRP, attached screenshot of how that looks like all seems okay but after reboot it still says that magisk needs to be installed... Very strange..

Appreciate any thoughts..

Stormy

 

[stormy1777]

noticed in above screenshot that it detected a patched boot image so decided to try installing the
v20.1 Magiskk zip file with the stock Boot, the install results in a screenshot, after reboot it still says that magisk has to be installed.!

also attaching screenshots showing the device is unlocked as well as USB debugging and OEM unlocking are all there.

Should this be posted in The magisk forum or is this something specific to the 7A? Or my steps?

How to debug further?

 

[stormy1777]

Attempted with the other TWRP image TWRP_v3.3.1-1_all.img, same results also reinstall the magisk manager 7.4 and same results....hmm.. maybe the OTA update took wrong ROM version. (EU and not pure Global)?...

 

[stormy1777]

Digging a bit more, found this pretty cool tool: https://www.xiaomitool.com/V2/latest called: "XiaoMiTool V2 ", which basically automated (almost) Everything !! Tried to do TWRP, as well as Magisk, it too followed similar steps I did, all automatically, rebooting, patching, etc. but outcome is still same, when phone boots normally, Magisk Manager says that Magisk 20.1 needs to be installed...

Then tried to flush miui_PINEGlobal_V11.0.4.0.PCMMIXM_674ed79f0b_9.0.zip using that tool, it said all is OK, phone rebooted , wiped all, but it still runs the EU version for some reason.. Now trying to find the path to "downgrade" from 11.0.6 to 11.0.4, or switch from EU to Global.. maybe that's the source of all issues, not sure what else to try

 

[stormy1777]

Reporting progress, to keep track of what was attempted. So, decided to WIPE all and start with 11.0.4 Global fresh, from TWRP, wiped everything, to the point it said "no OS installed, are you sure u want to reboot" it rebooted into fastboot, then downloaded the 11.0.4 Global .tgz and flashed, phone booted OK this time into 11.0.4 Flashed TWRP, and then attempted to flash Magisk via both routes, one by patching the boot.img from the .tgz and flashing, all using the Phone (to avoid any PC/driver/adb issues). The flashing worked fine, but upon reboot, Magisk Manager claimed that Magisk is not installed. Second try was to flash the stock boot.img, then flash magisk zip file, did that for v20.1, v19.4 and 19.3, each time from stock boot.img, and reboots to test, none of them showed that magisk is installed...

all this time, usb debugging is enabled despite most work done on the actual redmi 7A phone itself.

Then uninstalled magisk manager 7.4, and tried with 7.2, but that doesn't change much since any action there wants to update to v7.4..

next step will wipe again, and go for the Global 10.2.5... if that doesn't work then I really don't know what can be going on...

If anyone does have a 7A with MIUI 11 with a properly patched boot.img, would love to try it... all my patching attempted booted fine, but none showed that Magisk is installed... finding it hard to think it's a magisk bug, more likely some MIUI 11, lets see how 10 works out...

Stormy

 

[stormy1777]

OK, some success! so, wiped ALL again, to the point of no-OS installed; phone only boots into fastboot (brick), using flash_all.sh from 10.2.5 fastboot Global ROM flashed entire phone and it booted OK.
btw, not easy to find 10.2.5 now, as places already updated links to 11.0.x..

Once in 10.2.5, tried to patch Magisk in all possible ways (twrp or patching boot.img on phone the flashing from Windows10/PC) as also described in this thread few weeks ago:

https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=80498891&postcount=179

but it did NOT work, well, the procedure appeared OK, no errors and when booting, it says magisk needs to be installed.

The only thing that works is the provided boot global .img file [size 14.5 MB (15,269,888 bytes)], as soon as this one is flashed, via phone/twrp or PC, then the magisk is correctly detected.

Very mysterious, why only that boot.img is working on my 7A phones.. maybe there's an additional step, to "sign" or fix the boot.img before it can be flashed?

now took a full TWRP backup, and will try to move to 11.0.4 see if magisk is retained, and if not, if possible to re-gain it.. if not, then, will restore from TWRP backup.

Any thoughts welcomed..

Stormy.

 

[stormy1777]

Did not manage to get it working with MIUI 11 yet, so backed to MIUI 10.2.5.. all is fine there.

Noticed that TWRP did not "stick", flash but after normal boot, it came back to original recovery. I think this is b/c of Verify Boot in android Pie/9.. so I *think* what helped here is to flash a vbmeta.img from first post of this thread:

https://forum.xda-developers.com/redmi-7a/how-to/custom-gsi-firmware-t3965820

Even after flashing this, and even in 10.2.5, patching the STOCK 10.2.5 from the phone using Magisk 20.1 and installing using TWRP did not work, not sure if this is a bug in magisk or what, but only way to get root was using the provided boot.img as described above. I'll keep using 10.2.5 for now. feel free to add any ideas here , maybe one day will get more time and a spare phone to try MIUI 11

Stormy.

 

[xsstest]

hey , I have the same problem. I noticed you mentioned 'sign', what should I sign what things? and how to sign?

 

[depaul9999]

I was going to ask for the same thing : is there any method to root Redmi 7A under MIUI 11?

For my case :
-I can flash and boot to TWRP,
-I can 'flash' (install) Magisk through TWRP,
-However : this has no effect. Still Magisk Manager tells me that Magisk was not found!

The Redmi is unlocked and I can install custom roms (Mokee, LineageOS...). I see no reason why the phone can't be rooted it's probably just some bad configuration.

Thank you very much

 

[KnowTheyself]

I was going to ask for the same thing : is there any method to root Redmi 7A under MIUI 11?

For my case :
-I can flash and boot to TWRP,
-I can 'flash' (install) Magisk through TWRP,
-However : this has no effect. Still Magisk Manager tells me that Magisk was not found!

The Redmi is unlocked and I can install custom roms (Mokee, LineageOS...). I see no reason why the phone can't be rooted it's probably just some bad configuration.

Thank you very much

Don't bother rooting Redmi 7A, it just isn't possible, not even with the miui 10 (I've tried). There's no way to flash magisk successfuly, because when you do, magisk is still uninstalled, therefore no root and if you try SU instead, it happens some kind of error. If you try magisk without TWRP and flash a patched recovery it still doesn't work either. Since I can only follow tutorials because I understand nothing about Android I can say that there is no tutorial out there that works and all of them are wrong. I just don't understand why people bother to make tutorials that do not work just to make people waste their time.

 

[depaul9999]

Don't bother rooting Redmi 7A, it just isn't possible.

Thanks indeed that's the case for the moment. Hopefully we could soon manage to root the phone successfully.

My biggest motive is to install App2SD and move games to external storage, since with my 16GB version I can barely install one or two games and MIUI only allows installation to internal. (I know I should've bought a phone with bigger storage).

 

[KnowTheyself]

Thanks indeed that's the case for the moment. Hopefully we could soon manage to root the phone successfully.

My biggest motive is to install App2SD and move games to external storage, since with my 16GB version I can barely install one or two games and MIUI only allows installation to internal. (I know I should've bought a phone with bigger storage).

I've read that the 16GB version of the Redmi 7A is possible to put a micro SD card and format it as internal storage and that was the reason I've bought it, although I'm not yet sure because I'm waiting to buy a microSD card, it's still on the way.

I want to root it because of privacy reasons and that's the only reason. For now I'm using a VPN to block 99% of the google and xiaomi apps, etc. to the internet this way I got some privacy. I have unlocked the phone too so I did uninstalled several apps from the system using the PC.

 

[stormy1777]

Don't bother rooting Redmi 7A, it just isn't possible, not even with the miui 10 (I've tried). There's no way to flash magisk successfuly, because when you do, magisk is still uninstalled, therefore no root and if you try SU instead, it happens some kind of error. If you try magisk without TWRP and flash a patched recovery it still doesn't work either. Since I can only follow tutorials because I understand nothing about Android I can say that there is no tutorial out there that works and all of them are wrong. I just don't understand why people bother to make tutorials that do not work just to make people waste their time.

I don't think that's correct.. I've rooted several 7A, as many others on the forum, just look around, all these posts, many HAVE done based on the topics...

There are few more mysteries, even to experts, so don't feel bad (like how to path boot.img from Magisk, did it for other phones, but not possible for this one for some reason).. agree, there is no current/updated guide that works for everyone, but one can piece things together..

The reason there is no complete guide is not b/c people want to waste your time, they are really trying to SAVE time, however, there are many FACTORS at play, like initial ROM/state of the phone, some Global, some EU, some 10.x other 11.x and so forth, which change over time...

Once the bootloader is unlocked, then one should be able to:
- flash vbmeta.img
- flash twrp (I'm using 3.3.1-1003 'wzsx150').
boot into twrp and flash a properly patched boot.img (that matches your phone), now that's the tricky part, b/c one cannot be re-generated, u'd have to dig through some of the posts, like this: https://forum.xda-developers.com/redmi-7a/how-to/custom-gsi-firmware-t3965820 and find the boot.img that works, it had magisk 19.3 in it, but then update is easily possible.

it's important to flash vbmeta otherwise the "verified boot" will revert things back to a "working state", and you'll lose twrp..

Once my phone got to MIUI 11 it was not possible to root (since there is no boot.img that's patches correctly, and i couldn't do it), so i've flashed the whole phone back to 10.2.5 and from there rooting was pretty easy, the trick is to find the right boot.img.

Good luck.

 

[KnowTheyself]

I don't think that's correct.. I've rooted several 7A, as many others on the forum, just look around, all these posts, many HAVE done based on the topics...

There are few more mysteries, even to experts, so don't feel bad (like how to path boot.img from Magisk, did it for other phones, but not possible for this one for some reason).. agree, there is no current/updated guide that works for everyone, but one can piece things together..

The reason there is no complete guide is not b/c people want to waste your time, they are really trying to SAVE time, however, there are many FACTORS at play, like initial ROM/state of the phone, some Global, some EU, some 10.x other 11.x and so forth, which change over time...

Once the bootloader is unlocked, then one should be able to:
- flash vbmeta.img
- flash twrp (I'm using 3.3.1-1003 'wzsx150').
boot into twrp and flash a properly patched boot.img (that matches your phone), now that's the tricky part, b/c one cannot be re-generated, u'd have to dig through some of the posts, like this: https://forum.xda-developers.com/redmi-7a/how-to/custom-gsi-firmware-t3965820 and find the boot.img that works, it had magisk 19.3 in it, but then update is easily possible.

it's important to flash vbmeta otherwise the "verified boot" will revert things back to a "working state", and you'll lose twrp..

Once my phone got to MIUI 11 it was not possible to root (since there is no boot.img that's patches correctly, and i couldn't do it), so i've flashed the whole phone back to 10.2.5 and from there rooting was pretty easy, the trick is to find the right boot.img.

Good luck.

Well, if you say so... If you're right then I got the wrong Redmi 7A model. It came with the EU version of the miui.
I already knew the tutorial in the link you gave, but that seems very complicated and I do not really know what's going on there so it's better I do not try it. And if I followed that tutorial I would have to flash the phone again with the miui 10, because I have the 11 now. I already wasted many hours trying to root the phone and I had to flash the rom about 4 times because the phone became bricked. Anyway the tutorials I've followed were not the one in the link above and all the other ones I've tried did not work and yet they claim it does, specially using magisk only, without TWRP.
I'll wait for an easier method than the one you shared, if that will ever happen. For now I just use a VPN, it's the closest thing to root I have found, to deny system and apps permission to the internet.

Thank you

 

[stormy1777]

In case you're not aware, there are scripts to flash the entire phone automatically, I've done that 10's of times BEFORE putting the phone into "production" use, root was a _must-have_,phone's now heavily used, so can't toy with it much, unless forced to (see below), i may get another phone to play with, but not much TIME to justify it...

Was getting tired of typing:

:/ # pm list packages|grep xyz 

followed by:

:/ # pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.google.android.apps.tachyon
Success

Decided to give some "highly-rated" app a try, it claims to be able to remove system apps: "System app remover (root needed)":

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jumobile.manager.systemapp&hl=en_US

Took a full TWRP backup, installed, all seems great.. remove, goes to recycle bin, ok.. now, lets REBOOT..

Opps.. phones goes into FASTBOOT... OK!! that's what the backup is for.. go into TWRP, flush SYSTEM, CACHE, DATA, reboot, again, we're in Fastboot, and this time no RECOVERY boot is possible, just goes into FASTBOOT directly.. much like i've described in this thread:

https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=80509823&postcount=111

so, TWRP on phone doesn't help much, took the TWRP backup from SD Card to PC (since phone can only do fastboot at this point), thought it would be easy/possible to fastboot flash all the TWRP into the phone from PC, however, that is NOT simple, since TWRP breaks files, one must concatenate them before flashing..

I was not in the mood, nor did i think a huge change took place, it was just something silly that app did. hmm.. here, i can't exactly explain what took place, but a sequence of flashing of boot.img recovery.img and vbmeta.img all from STOCK and the TWRP backup, was "all it took" to recover the phone fully..

After about 30+ flashes and reboots it came to life much like the last boot, went into that APP again, tried to RESTORE the apps, it failed, and a reboot again, went into FASTBOOT! twrp was there, again, tried recovery, this time only SYSTEM, again, phone lost recovery, and went into, fastboot only... and.. again, sequence of flashing from fastboot, i can tell that vbmeta (Verify Boot) takes a *major* role in this version/device, if something is not right, it just reverts things or decides to go into fastboot.

I saw it work once, so was not going to give up and wipe/start fresh.. kept trying..

I think the app somehow made "direct" modifications to the system partition without proper interface, and thus ruined the "signature" or encryption, otherwise not sure how it could trash the phone so badly..

in any event, after long struggles, flashing the LATEST did _not_ work, it's almost as if the phone had to be taken back to original setting, let it boot into recovery, then reboot again, and flash things in steps, not all at once, at least based on this experience. I know it's silly, b/c in Android 6 I've restored/cloned phones all the time using TWRP directly from phone.. not sure, it does not work on my 7A's...

eventually, phone booted, with 10.2.5 magisk/boot.img (no root, since it did not recognize magisk), then fastboot flashed the canary boot.img, and got root.

anyways, point is, it was pretty ugly, and I'm not complaining, just saying this is pretty complicated stuff, it's a miracle that this even works

keep up the great work everyone, if i can help in any way, let me know...

All this is on Global phone, I don't have an EU/ROM/phone, so can't help u directly, but someone may have a root boot.img EU boot, that's really the key, and the vbmeta.img of course as for MIUI11? so what if that's what you have, it can be flashed, it's a matter of choice, flash to miui 10.2.5 and get root, or try to do it on MIUI11, or, let it be and use w/o root.. which was not an option for me

good luck.
Stormy.

 

[stormy1777]

btw, the magisk/patching boot.img did not work for me, and was reported in that same thread:

https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=80560039&postcount=206

MDV106 said that both EU and global boot.img were posted in that thread, and i agree i used one of them, not sure exactly which, but definitely it was the Global, not the EU. and i think it's not goot to mix up.. if u have an EU, stick with it, it might impact Wifi or similar "regional" things..

 

[boody shaban]

Same problem, but it works on mokee

Add-on-su on mokee open source ROM works fine, can enable root from developer options only, magisk and supersu don't work.
I have been trying to make them work but it seems impossible, I have looked in system/xbin and found no su files, maybe the problem is in the meta-INF because it doesn't properly know where to install it.

 

[stormy1777]

Add-on-su on mokee open source ROM works fine, can enable root from developer options only, magisk and supersu don't work.
I have been trying to make them work but it seems impossible, I have looked in system/xbin and found no su files, maybe the problem is in the meta-INF because it doesn't properly know where to install it.

Thanks for this data point, yeah, root was/is also possible with MIUI 10.2.5, I'm sure other ROMs can root pretty easily.. the "goal" of this thread is to somehow figure how to do it on MIUI 11 so we can take the security updates and still retain rootness

 

[anglican007]

working root redmi 7a

Working root for Redmi 7a

thank you stormy1777 - it is your tutorial, I only put it together. It is the only tutorial that works

links unavailable due to site rules:
google for: ROM v10.2.5. global V10.2.5.0.PCMMIXM/pine_global_images_V10.2.5.0.PCMMIXM_20190805.0000.00_9.0_global_efb78ff9c3.tgz
google for: patched boot v10.2.5. under: xiaomifirmware (dot) com how-to-install-twrp-and-magisk-root-on-redmi-7a
google for: TWRP: under: androidweblog(dot)com xiaomi-redmi-7a-root-install-twrp-recovery I took the version 3.3.1.-0
google for Magisk: Magisk-v20.1.zip

Install in fastboot mode and with Mi Flash Tool
flash: pine_global_images_V10.2.5.0.PCMMIXM_20190805.0000.00_9.0_global
option: clean all

wait until the mobile phone is fully installed (will reboot automatically)

copy Magisk into the root directory on your phone

restart in fastboot mode (volume down + power button)

on PC:
rename twrp file to recovery.img
rename boot file to boot.img
copy boot.img and recovery.img on the PC in the directory, where adb drivers are

open power shell on the PC in the directory, where adb drivers are

type in the power shell window:
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
Enter

then type in the power shell window
fastboot flash boot boot.img
Enter

then hold volume up + power button until it 2x starts and vibrates, then wait, it opens in TWRP

type install, find Magisk.zip in the phone root directory a flash

restart into system

done