Bootloop after copying a file to /system using TWRP with no root - Galaxy Note5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello
I've got the Note 5 SM-N9208 and I am trying not to root (tripped Knox tho as I but Phillippines system.img on it) it as the annoying Barclays App doesn't work.
I am however, trying to add my custom CA certificate into the /system/etc/security/cacerts folder. This is what I used to do in my rooted devices before and worked fine.
I have flashed TWRP and taken a full backup (thank God!) and then mounted the system as RW, copied the file, rebooted and voila, boot loop on the Samsung Note 5 screen.
The only fix is to reflash the system partition from the original TAR file which makes me wonder - is there a mechanism that prevents system from being modified if the device is unrooted? Something like Samsung's system protection or something.
Could anyone try to reproduce the issue on an unrooted phone just to see if it's just me being unlucky? Or is is simply not possible to modify system without root? If so, how come TWRP allows me to do so?
Let me know what you think guys
Looking forward to hear someone else's opinion.

mateuszd said:
Hello
Let me know what you think guys
Looking forward to hear someone else's opinion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You must be rooted to make system changes.

You need to make some changes in ramdisk : remove support_scfs,verify from the fstab files for system partition

Related

[Q] Replace Build.prop In TWRP

Hey all,
Today is not my day...just not paying attention. I accidentally replaced my build.prop file with a modified version but forgot to change the permissions so now I am boot looping. I can still access TWRP, so I was curious if there is any way to get a new build.prop file onto the phone so I do not have to do a full wipe. Any help would be appreciated.
Also, if its possible to flash onto the phone, does anyone have the build.prop file I can use? Thanks in advance.
I guess I can also access the bootloader for fastboot, if that makes a difference. Thanks.
JustROLLIN said:
I guess I can also access the bootloader for fastboot, if that makes a difference. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can either use mfastboot to flash the entire system. IMG for the rom you are using (easiest). Or use adb from within recovery to fix permissions on the build.prop....
Good luck :good:
Edit: re flashing just system will not affect you data. Only any modifications made to /system. For instance: if you are using xposed, it will need to be reinstalled. All other apps will be unaffected.
samwathegreat said:
You can either use mfastboot to flash the entire system. IMG for the rom you are using (easiest). Or use adb from within recovery to fix permissions on the build.prop....
Good luck :good:
Edit: re flashing just system will not affect you data. Only any modifications made to /system. For instance: if you are using xposed, it will need to be reinstalled. All other apps will be unaffected.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your idea spurred me to use a method I used the other day, from this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-x/general/fxz-moto-x-4-4-4-212-55-26-t2827307
Worked great and saved all data, thank you!

Help.. phone bricked, deleted /carrier applications

I was trying to cleanup carrier bloatware off my phone and I think I deleted some apps that were critical.
I deleted ItsOnService.apk (NetworkSystemProvider) and ItsOnUID.apk. Unfortunately I didn't make a backup of them. Then, wifi and LTE/3g stopped working (even if Wifi is connected, internet is permanently not available).
The worst part of this is that the issue persists after reflashing back to stock. The problem is I don't think the stock roms contain the /carrier directory. And now I cannot complete the setup wizard because at first boot, I'm forced to select a wifi network and once I connect internet is not available, so the wizard won't proceed.
Is there anything I can do? If someone were to send me the missing APKs could I use recovery mode and sideload them?
Chanman said:
I was trying to cleanup carrier bloatware off my phone and I think I deleted some apps that were critical.
I deleted ItsOnService.apk (NetworkSystemProvider) and ItsOnUID.apk. Unfortunately I didn't make a backup of them. Then, wifi and LTE/3g stopped working (even if Wifi is connected, internet is permanently not available).
The worst part of this is that the issue persists after reflashing back to stock. The problem is I don't think the stock roms contain the /carrier directory. And now I cannot complete the setup wizard because at first boot, I'm forced to select a wifi network and once I connect internet is not available, so the wizard won't proceed.
Is there anything I can do? If someone were to send me the missing APKs could I use recovery mode and sideload them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you still have the rooted system image on ur sdcard?? just reroot
Google~Android said:
do you still have the rooted system image on ur sdcard?? just reroot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do have the rooted image, as well as the stock image, I have applied both, the problem still exists. I think when I reroot or reflash it's not writing the /carrier directory, that must have come from somewhere else. I confirmed this by unpacking the TOT file and looking inside, it has all the apps, but it does not have the /carrier directory. Do you have ItsOnService.apk and ItsOnUID.apk? Maybe I could try sideloading them?
Chanman said:
I do have the rooted image, as well as the stock image, I have applied both, the problem still exists. I think when I reroot or reflash it's not writing the /carrier directory, that must have come from somewhere else. I confirmed this by unpacking the TOT file and looking inside, it has all the apps, but it does not have the /carrier directory. Do you have ItsOnService.apk and ItsOnUID.apk? Maybe I could try sideloading them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nope i don't have a g4 as of now...shud be here in a week
Chanman said:
I was trying to cleanup carrier bloatware off my phone and I think I deleted some apps that were critical.
I deleted ItsOnService.apk (NetworkSystemProvider) and ItsOnUID.apk. Unfortunately I didn't make a backup of them. Then, wifi and LTE/3g stopped working (even if Wifi is connected, internet is permanently not available).
The worst part of this is that the issue persists after reflashing back to stock. The problem is I don't think the stock roms contain the /carrier directory. And now I cannot complete the setup wizard because at first boot, I'm forced to select a wifi network and once I connect internet is not available, so the wizard won't proceed.
Is there anything I can do? If someone were to send me the missing APKs could I use recovery mode and sideload them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to know exactly what you deleted. The itsonuid is in the system/priv-app directory. I didn't see the itsonservice but didn't spend much time looking. You need to know if you deleted things out of carrier partition or vendor partition or both... Get a list together...
Agimax said:
You need to know exactly what you deleted. The itsonuid is in the system/priv-app directory. I didn't see the itsonservice but didn't spend much time looking. You need to know if you deleted things out of carrier partition or vendor partition or both... Get a list together...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I can confirm what you're saying, I did find ItsOnUID in system/priv-app, so at least I can restore that one. However, I am pretty sure ItsOnService is in /carrier and I deleted it using ES File Explorer. I had deleted ItsOnUID with Titanium Backup. Titanium Backup was not able to find ItsOnService, so that's why I had used ES File Explorer, which confirms that ItsOnService must have been in /carrier.
Since it looks like there is no /carrier directory in these TOT files, is there some other way I can get ItsOnService.apk? Can anyone out there send it to me?
Chanman said:
Thanks, I can confirm what you're saying, I did find ItsOnUID in system/priv-app, so at least I can restore that one. However, I am pretty sure ItsOnService is in /carrier and I deleted it using ES File Explorer. I had deleted ItsOnUID with Titanium Backup. Titanium Backup was not able to find ItsOnService, so that's why I had used ES File Explorer, which confirms that ItsOnService must have been in /carrier.
Since it looks like there is no /carrier directory in these TOT files, is there some other way I can get ItsOnService.apk? Can anyone out there send it to me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Might be a little late but here ya go.
2348z said:
Might be a little late but here ya go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot!!!
Chanman said:
Thanks a lot!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem buddy. ?

HTC One M7 - App will not stick on /system

Hi everyone
I'm trying to get the infamous GPS Location Spoofer installed as a system app on my rooted HTC phone, but so far no luck, so I figured I would try to ask for help here, in case anyone went through a similar situation, or knows what I've been doing wrong. This is what I tried so far:
Installed the app from Google App store, and using File Explorer with root , tried to move the app folder to /system/app or /system/priv-app, , but pasting the folder there would result in an instant reboot and the app would not be there.
So I installed lucky patcher , and using apk downloader, downloaded the apk file from the App Store, copied it over to the phone, and used the "Rebuild and Install" option, choosing the option to install it as a system app , and it would process it and say that the installation was sucessfull, needs to reboot to complete, but after the reboot the app would not be there (not only not showing on the apps list, but navigating to the /system folder with File Explorer and checking app and priv-app I could verify that it was not installed).
SO I tried to use adb shell to do the work , and this is what I did:
mount -o remount /dev/block/mmcblk0p35 /system
to mount the /system filesystem as read write , and it did
cp /sdcard/Download/com.incorporateapps.fakegps.fre-55.apk /system/app
to copy the file under /system/app
chmod 644 com.incorporateapps.fakegps.fre-55.apk
to set the permissions as required
and reboot the phone, but after the reboot, the file would not be there. I tried also to create a folder under /system/app named com.incorporateapps.fakegps.fre-55, move the apk inside; installing normally , changing the mount point to read-write and moving it from /data/app to /system/app or /system/priv-app using the shell and chaning ownership / permissions , but the app will not stick , either rebooting or just re-mounting the filesystem as read-only again will cause everything that was done to be lost; and after trying any of the above one time, doing it for a second time would cause the phone to reboot.
I figure that there must be an image of the /system mount point somewhere , which gets installed every time there is a remount to read-only or reboot , or something of that nature, that will cause any changes made under /system to be lost. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to be related to HTC phones, since there's load of people doing it on other models without issues, or maybe I'm doing something wrong, since I'm no android expert
Does anyone knows what could be the issue, or what can I do ? I searched the net quite a bit for a solution to no avail (here as well), any help is appreciated
Thanks
sasteck said:
Hi everyone
I'm trying to get the infamous GPS Location Spoofer installed as a system app on my rooted HTC phone, but so far no luck, so I figured I would try to ask for help here, in case anyone went through a similar situation, or knows what I've been doing wrong. This is what I tried so far:
Installed the app from Google App store, and using File Explorer with root , tried to move the app folder to /system/app or /system/priv-app, , but pasting the folder there would result in an instant reboot and the app would not be there.
So I installed lucky patcher , and using apk downloader, downloaded the apk file from the App Store, copied it over to the phone, and used the "Rebuild and Install" option, choosing the option to install it as a system app , and it would process it and say that the installation was sucessfull, needs to reboot to complete, but after the reboot the app would not be there (not only not showing on the apps list, but navigating to the /system folder with File Explorer and checking app and priv-app I could verify that it was not installed).
SO I tried to use adb shell to do the work , and this is what I did:
mount -o remount /dev/block/mmcblk0p35 /system
to mount the /system filesystem as read write , and it did
cp /sdcard/Download/com.incorporateapps.fakegps.fre-55.apk /system/app
to copy the file under /system/app
chmod 644 com.incorporateapps.fakegps.fre-55.apk
to set the permissions as required
and reboot the phone, but after the reboot, the file would not be there. I tried also to create a folder under /system/app named com.incorporateapps.fakegps.fre-55, move the apk inside; installing normally , changing the mount point to read-write and moving it from /data/app to /system/app or /system/priv-app using the shell and chaning ownership / permissions , but the app will not stick , either rebooting or just re-mounting the filesystem as read-only again will cause everything that was done to be lost; and after trying any of the above one time, doing it for a second time would cause the phone to reboot.
I figure that there must be an image of the /system mount point somewhere , which gets installed every time there is a remount to read-only or reboot , or something of that nature, that will cause any changes made under /system to be lost. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to be related to HTC phones, since there's load of people doing it on other models without issues, or maybe I'm doing something wrong, since I'm no android expert
Does anyone knows what could be the issue, or what can I do ? I searched the net quite a bit for a solution to no avail (here as well), any help is appreciated
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using stock kernel?
donkeykong1 said:
Are you using stock kernel?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, kernel is the default that comes with the phone (3.4.10.g96cae32 , android 5.0.2)
sasteck said:
Yes, kernel is the default that comes with the phone (3.4.10.g96cae32 , android 5.0.2)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And there's your problem. Stock kernel has system write protection, so you can't mount system as writeable. You can, but after reboot, it comes back to read only, and nothing will stick into system partition. You have 2 choices now - disable system write protection on stock kernel, or flash a custom kernel
donkeykong1 said:
And there's your problem. Stock kernel has system write protection, so you can't mount system as writeable. You can, but after reboot, it comes back to read only, and nothing will stick into system partition. You have 2 choices now - disable system write protection on stock kernel, or flash a custom kernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh I see.. didn't know about that , thanks! I'll check about disabling system write protection , otherwise look for a custom kernel, never did it before but will give it a try
donkeykong1 said:
And there's your problem. Stock kernel has system write protection, so you can't mount system as writeable. You can, but after reboot, it comes back to read only, and nothing will stick into system partition. You have 2 choices now - disable system write protection on stock kernel, or flash a custom kernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shhhhhh, don't help him, he's going to steal everyone's pokemons
Sent from my HTC One using XDA Labs
alray said:
Shhhhhh, don't help him, he's going to steal everyone's pokemons
Sent from my HTC One using XDA Labs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ooooohhh... That's why he's trying the spoofer.... If I knew, I wouldn't help at all [emoji6]
donkeykong1 said:
Ooooohhh... That's why he's trying the spoofer.... If I knew, I wouldn't help at all [emoji6]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry you feel that way, but I appreciate the help anyway. This is something that I never tampered with before, so I still had some doubts about the process, but I am liking the whole thing and will install a custom rom on my own phone, been reading about the Ressurection rom and it looks very nice, will try it as soon as I'm better informed
sasteck said:
Sorry you feel that way, but I appreciate the help anyway. This is something that I never tampered with before, so I still had some doubts about the process, but I am liking the whole thing and will install a custom rom on my own phone, been reading about the Ressurection rom and it looks very nice, will try it as soon as I'm better informed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was a joke mate. I don't care what you do with your phone, but I'm here to help if I can [emoji6]

bootloop after messing with build.prop

hello, please help me recover my phone, it's stuck on bootloop after i tried to change brand and model by editing build prop
my phone has lots of important notes , and many open tabs on chrome i don't want to lose track of.
i ve been trying with adb, but i am desperate now, will flashing system.sin delete my data ?
Did you try to fix the permissions with adb? Do u have a backup
masterofnocrack said:
Did you try to fix the permissions with adb? Do u have a backup
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have a copy of my build prop, after messing arround and experimenting how to use adb, i think i manage to remove the old file, and pushed the backup, but still my phone keep rebooting after sony logo, i don't get the blue waves
Gamer4Life said:
i have a copy of my build prop, after messing arround and experimenting how to use adb, i think i manage to remove the old file, and pushed the backup, but still my phone keep rebooting after sony logo, i don't get the blue waves
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know how to do it but it must work, you should create a zip file that would inject build.prop. Maybe somebody can help you to do it.
U need to set the proper permissions.
After pushing ur backup build.prop to /system
Do this in adb shell: chmod 644 /system/build.prop
if you have TWRP recovery go to mount option and mount system partition.
then go to file manager and find build.prop file in /system then chmod that file.
reboot system.!!!!!
on the other side of the coin you can flash your phone using FLASHTOOL
Gamer4Life said:
hello, please help me recover my phone, it's stuck on bootloop after i tried to change brand and model by editing build prop
my phone has lots of important notes , and many open tabs on chrome i don't want to lose track of.
i ve been trying with adb, but i am desperate now, will flashing system.sin delete my data ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
flash system.sin using flashtool and exclude userdata from wipe box
if you are on stock try to flash the same build cause as i think every version is do resize partitions so that will make your internal memory not accessible and you will must flash userdata if that happened
and best of all if you have TWRP is to build prerooted firmware and copy to your Internal memory or sdcard and flash it
this will don't do anything with userdata partition
Thanks everyone, i flashed sin system with flashtool, lost my mods and root, but not big deal my notes are saved.
All this hassle was because i wanted to spoof my phone into galaxy s2 to get old gameloft games to work on my phone. I changed manufacturer ftom sony to Samsung and model number.
Dont know what i did wrong.

Question Unable to delete system files

So I have been rooting phones for years. I have taken a stab at rooting the S8 tab. I used many Root Explorers. I cannot delete system files or modify them. I paid for Root Explorer since im familiar with that app. Still no luck. Any idea what I can do? Thanks for your help in advance.
GhostVengeance said:
So I have been rooting phones for years. I have taken a stab at rooting the S8 tab. I used many Root Explorers. I cannot delete system files or modify them. I paid for Root Explorer since im familiar with that app. Still no luck. Any idea what I can do? Thanks for your help in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried using Magisk?? Or using Traditional Root? And for what reason do you want to Delete System files, If you do by mistake delete some Critical System files, device can be in fatal situation to restore again..
Ashutosh1358 said:
Have you tried using Magisk?? Or using Traditional Root? And for what reason do you want to Delete System files, If you do by mistake delete some Critical System files, device can be in fatal situation to restore again..
Yes, im currently rooted. I tried replacing the splash screen in System/media I have tried about 5 different root explorers and gave root permission to all of them. I am very limited with this root.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Deleted
Since Android 11+ Google has been enforcing RO partitions only. So, what that basically means is that your partitions are only RO = Read Only, which means even if you have ROOT access there is no way of deleting anything from those partitions.
In order to be able to delete files from Partitions like System/Vendor/Product, etc... You would need to modify them by flashing certain scripts that repack/modify all the partitions and make them RW instead of RO. RW = Read/Write permission, so that means you would be able to delete files from those partitions.
There are certain scripts/mods floating around XDA that you could try to flash and make partitions RW but it's not guaranteed it would work especially if you're on the A13 currently since you would require TWRP to flash those scripts/mods and access to internal storage (You would need to force disable encryption so you can always access the storage inside TWRP.
I run a Magisk-less root on one device. I use a custom recovery to mount system and vendor r/w.
One thing that I learned is that (at least on mine) they were using FEC which is error correction.
I'd write a file and the changes would not be visible! They would be "corrected".
If you are root, look at the last 4096 bytes of the system or vendor partition.
If you see FECFECFE than that's what you have.
I'm only running Android 10 and I don't have a super partition.
(Note that to brute force modify system or vendor you need to modify your dtb, your fstab, maybe vbmeta.)
Thank you everyone for the help. Im glad I have some clarification now.

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