SGS4 GE - YAQAR (Yet another question about rooting)

[argold]

Does the Motochopper method shown at How to Root the Samsung Galaxy S4 (All Qualcomm Models) - YouTube work with the S4 Google Edition? It is explained in clear English without flashing unreadable out of focus screens or being drowned out by background rock music and the explanation does not use terms like recovery and flash and bootloader. Thanks for any comments or warnings.

 

[SamuriHL]

No. But rooting our phone is pretty easy.

xda-developers - View Single Post - [HOWTO] Root Stock i9505G 4.3 (Google edition)

You can use that.

 

[argold]

@SamuriHL - many thanks for your reply.

Could anyone who understand this matter help me understand what that script does, and why.

The script appears to do exactly 2 things, 1) transfer a particular image file (recovery-clockwork-6.0.3.6-jfltexx.img) into the phone and 2) install a phone app called SuperSU. Am I right so far?

I am unsure why the SuperSU is included, and maybe I don't need that. It appears, from its Google Pay Store description, that SuperSU itself requires root and so I infer that the app plays no part in causing the rooting, so maybe it is useful for purposes for which I have no need.

If the rooting is just caused by the installation of that image file then these questions:

1) Is there some way I can first extract and save the existing image so that I can run the script using the existing file in order to reverse the rooting after I have fixed platform.xml? Else, can I fetch a copy of that original image file from somewhere else for this purpose?

2) If I leave the phone rooted will it still be offered and be able to receive updates, such as Kitkat, in the same manner that unrooted phones do? I appreciate that KitKat itself may cause yet more difficulties, so next time I'll wait before accepting an offer of a "gift" from Google.

3) I know that the script languages for different versions of Windows have differences. Does this RUN.bat execute correctly under XP?

Thanks for any comments.

 

[SamuriHL]

There's too much to answer right now. It does not transfer the recovery img to the phone. It temp boots it in memory and doesn't overwrite stock recovery in any way. It then sideloads the supersu zip. Suggest you do some research on what that is and why you need it. It's not just the app that's in the app store. It contains the su binary which is installed into the system partition. That is why you need custom recovery because there's no other way to make the system partition writeable. Root does not impact updates in any way. I wish that myth would die. What does break updates is when people do things with root that modify system files. Your platform xml change for example. Removing root ain't going to fix that. If the update asserts on a file you've changed, the update will fail regardless of whether you remove root or not. Otoh I always keep root installed when I do updates and never have a problem. That's all I can answer right now.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 4

 

[argold]

Okay, I have made progress. I ran the script and believe all went well. I installed an app Root Checker Basic and it says Congratulations - This device has root access!

I am now trying to transfer an edited version of platform.xml. I decided to do the change by downloading the repaired copy with a slightly different name and then perform the exchange by mututally renaming the original and new one. I have the new file in a temporary directory in 0 but when I try to copy it to the final folder I get an error message about a read-only file system.

The properties of the Device/system/etc/permissions folder - as shown by ES File Explorer - are:
Readable: Yes
Writable: Yes
Hidden: No

As before, any clues will be appreciated in what is needed to paste the revised platform.xml into that folder. Maybe I need to do something to award ES File Explorer some necessary privileges?

 

[SamuriHL]

I don't use es file Explorer so I can't help there. It must be granted root permissions so that it can write to the system partition. That's about all I can tell you on that. Keeping the original file unedited is a very good idea. Then on the next update you can restore the original and run the update.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 4

 

[argold]

@SamuriHL - Thanks again. I found another file manager in the Play Store called Root Browser and that one did the trick. And since that I've managed to move 8GB of maps, including two TomTom apps and maps of several countries in Maps With Me, out of Internal Storage and then add yet more maps that I had been prevented from downloading before. It's major win to get back the device first those ******'s sold to me along with the maps and then crippled to prevent my using device with those same paid maps. Thanks so much for your guidance

One change which may be coincidental or collateral damage is that I appear to have lost the MTP driver for USB file transfers. Maybe the ADB driver created a conflict or maybe something different happened. I still have transfers available via WiFi with Airdroid, but that is far slower than a wired connection. If necessary I can also use the external USB as a thumb drive. But if anyone has a reliable method for installing the MTP driver I'd be grateful of the advice.

BTW I'm using a 32GB microSD card and I saw several older posts complaining about failures when using 64GB cards. Does anyone use 64GB microSD cards in their Galaxy S4 without problems?

 

[SamuriHL]

Just uninstall the universal adb driver and let it reinstall the samsung usb driver.

 

[argold]

Thanks but that is not the problem and there has been some change in the phone. I wound back to a system that reliably would recognise PTP, MTP or ADB depending on how the phone was configured. Now the MTP driver is loaded but complains: "This device cannot start. (Code 10)", so I infer whatever host or server process used to be run by the phone is not being run now.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Question: what is the behavior of "Factory data reset"? Does this reload any system components or does it merely cream off all user-installed apps along with their data and the phone's personal data, configurations and settings? I'm not planning on doing that and anyway this phone with usable external SD storage albeit without MTP service is still the difference between useful and useless.

 

[SamuriHL]

FDR simply deletes the data partition. Doesn't touch anything on system.

 

[thepktrckt]

BTW I'm using a 32GB microSD card and I saw several older posts complaining about failures when using 64GB cards. Does anyone use 64GB microSD cards in their Galaxy S4 without problems?

I have general booting issues where I may have to pop out the microSD to get past the google screen but have found that to be true for both 32 and 64gb cards. My S4GE is running CM10.2 and a 64gb without issue right now.