Reverting from Android 4.4 to 4.3...

[Tall Mike 2145]

A brief skim through the sections here on AndroidForums, or on Google's own forums, or for that matter just doing a bit of googling is more than enough to see how wide-spread the problems are with Android 4.4 on a variety of different devices.

Some issues are correctable through doing a factory wipe. Other issues can be corrected through reloading the image from Google's own factory image repository. However, some things (in particular the battery drain issue) seems to be an issue within 4.4 itself, and the only solution I've found has been to revert from 4.4 to 4.3.

So I'm posting this thread and asking the more knowledgeable users here on AndroidForums to post clear, concise directions for acquiring and flashing these devices back to the Google "factory image".

The reason I'm asking for the community to pitch in is that the instructions I've seen are kind of scattered, are not necessarily up to date, and they can and do vary depending on whether you're doing this with Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, or with Mac OS X, or with Linux.

I was able to re-flash my Nexus 4 in Lion back to 4.3, but I had to do editing of bash shell scripts and even then had to issue the execution of the appropriate shell script from the exact right spot or else it couldn't find the command, or couldn't execute the command. The directions on Google's site were incomplete, and the ones I found on various message boards seemed more like an author's "best guess" than authoritative "you can trust that this will work" workflows.

Thanks in advance!

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[anon(55900)]

Wugfresh.com

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[Fairclough]

+1 for wug fresh
Use wigs tool kit for nexuses and you can press flash to stock. I think if you choose 4.4 initially it will reflash 4.4 so be safe and maybe click 4.3.

This method is more for when wugs hasn't updated around a new release but will help you do it also. initially it can be confusing but if you go step by step its not that hard. I found dragging the files into CMD to be quicker than typing them. (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO7HkTrRzwM&feature=youtube_gdata_player)

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[Tall Mike 2145]

Great! And, Fairclough, is this pretty consistent through different versions of Windows?

I still would like to see something posted for Mac OS X.

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[anon(55900)]

http://www.wugfresh.com/faqs/is-there-a-mac-nexus-root-toolkit/

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[Tall Mike 2145]

http://www.wugfresh.com/faqs/is-there-a-mac-nexus-root-toolkit/

In other words, no there isn't. Got it.

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[anon(55900)]

Some people had success using wine and one other thing, read the entire article then try the suggestions.

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[someguy01234]

As far as I know you just have to get adb to work with your device. The instruction is here: [GUIDE] Set up ADB and Fastboot on a Mac easily (With Screenshots!) - xda-developers

You can set your computer to type adb and fastboot from anywhere. Like in the guide, you just use a text editor to edit the file .bash_profile located in your home folder.
Add PATH=${PATH}:/Users/<yourusername>/Desktop/android-sdk-mac_x86/tools to the end of that text file, that folder will point to where the "adb" and "fastboot files" are located. Then log out and back in.

If you have USB debugging turned on, then you can type adb devices in the command line from any folder and it should see your phone. Or if you are in the bootloader menu (by holding VOL DOWN + POWER), then type fastboot devices.

Then just download and extract the factory image files. Boot your phone into bootloader mode, run the flash-all.sh script and done. Or you can type it out manually, starting from step 5 from this guide: http://forums.androidcentral.com/ne...3923-guide-nexus-4-factory-image-restore.html

 

[Fairclough]

I did mine on windows 8. The one displayed in the video is for 7 I believe. So it should work alright with other models. Sometimes mine acted up and took a few repeat goes but eventually I got the hang of it.

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[Tall Mike 2145]

See, it's kind of a complicated situation here, at least in my view.

The way flashing is done fundamentally requires that developer tools are installed. This, therefore, triggers a certain level of assumption about the knowledgeability of the user which doesn't really apply when you're talking about someone who is only using an advanced tool because there isn't any other way of getting at the problem, even though it isn't a tool they would EVER otherwise touch in their life.

So stuff like that, or the comparatively brute-force way I had to go about it (which itself isn't a part of anything close to a basic user's level of knowledge) means that a normal person trying to follow the online directions I was running across will either not be able to get the software to flash the phone, or won't be able to get it to do a complete job, and therefore won't be able to re-flash their phone back to 4.3 (at least successfully).

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[Fairclough]

I'm a dummy with it. It just requires a lot of downloads if you do the YouTube method. Wugz I believe is a bit more straight forward initially, I think their is a guide somewhere this forums to use it. It is a bit of a pain the average Joe can't revert back if they desired by just clicking a button on their phone.

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[anon(55900)]

See, it's kind of a complicated situation here, at least in my view.

The way flashing is done fundamentally requires that developer tools are installed. This, therefore, triggers a certain level of assumption about the knowledgeability of the user which doesn't really apply when you're talking about someone who is only using an advanced tool because there isn't any other way of getting at the problem, even though it isn't a tool they would EVER otherwise touch in their life.

So stuff like that, or the comparatively brute-force way I had to go about it (which itself isn't a part of anything close to a basic user's level of knowledge) means that a normal person trying to follow the online directions I was running across will either not be able to get the software to flash the phone, or won't be able to get it to do a complete job, and therefore won't be able to re-flash their phone back to 4.3 (at least successfully).

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What are you talking about ?

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[Kamin]

Is it possible to revert to 4.3 on the Nexus 5?

 

[anon(55900)]

Wugfresh.com

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[Tall Mike 2145]

What are you talking about ?

There used to be a program back in the day to root and re-ROM the HTC EVO 4G. It was great for those of us who aren't developers. It is a shame that no such software seems to exist for the Nexus series of devices today.

You can't just double-click the flashing batch file in Mac OS X. Likewise, there's no explanation by Google of modifying your system like Someguy01234 said above to get the fastboot command to work everywhere. In fact, how would the average person even *know* about such things as bash or path statements? I know a bit about bash and am comfortable navigating around via CLI and even I don't (didn't) know how to modify and add things to path.

And, to be honest, I'm of really mixed feelings here about who's responsibility it should be to support the hackability of an OS which is designed to be hackable by a company which ostensibly believes in and supports the F/OSS movement and the hacker ethic. I think Google should build a program to root and re-ROM devices, but not all hardware works quite the same way so maybe the phone makers should make ports. But then, the community itself will want abilities and features and so maybe they should do a port, or maybe scratch-build the thing.

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[Tall Mike 2145]

Mad props to someguy01234 as well, before I forget, for his post above. Everything he posted and/or linked to is solid and good for Mac OS X users.

Looks like we have a reasonably solid thread here that's current at least as of December 2013 for Windows and Mac OS X users for both restoring their Nexus devices to prior versions of Android, and obviously this is a springboard for those looking to root and re-ROM their phones.

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[gone down south]

If you don't understand the process, you have no business playing around in the guts of your OS.

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[Tall Mike 2145]

If you don't understand the process, you have no business playing around in the guts of your OS.

Oh, so then it's just too bad for users who simply want to revert to a prior version of Android, like with the 4.4 problem?

 

[Indigoquilter]

I'd love to revert to 4.3, but I clearly don't even begin to have the level of knowledge necessary for the job. Unless there are serious fixes, the changes are making my tablet extremely difficult to use, and may even make it unusable. For instance, I can't really use it for internet browsing any more, unless Boat Browsers releases an update which gets text reflow to work again when you increase the text size, and come to that gets text resizing to work again - I'm visually impaired, I need relatively large print. The tablet (2012 Nexus 7) is juddering and horribly slow, and I had to charge it today less than 4 hours after starting to use it - and we're talking intermittent, light use as well. Two apps so far aren't working at all, including, ironically, Google Hangouts - which appeared to log me in to my boyfriend's account just before the update, too, which has been slightly worrying us. I seem to be forever touching the screen multiple times to get the touch to register.

It's less than a year since I bought the tablet (from PC World in the UK), so do I have any options in terms of warranties or what have you? It shouldn't become unusable after a mere OS update. I'll check the consumer law with Citizens Advice tomorrow, but so far I've called PC World and the automated system has informed me that I should be talking to Asus.

I've done some googling and people are talking about Google releasing an update to KitKat fairly soon. However, I have no idea what "soon" might mean. Does anyone have an idea? I bought the tablet on 27/12/12, so if there's any kind of policy lasting a year where I could be covered for a replacement, I don't have all that long. Also does anyone have an idea of which problems are likely to be fixed? Obviously it's not Google's responsibility that my browser is no longer working properly, that's up to the browser developer, but I'm thinking in terms of the keyboard lag, touchscreen problems, and battery drain.

(When I was vaguely thinking of replacing my tablet the other week, and went to have a look at the Samsung 8" models, I discovered that you can't really use them upside down, as when they are plugged in to charge while sitting on their stand. The sales guy expressed surprise that anyone would need to use a tablet while it was charging. Hah.)

In more minor grumbling, why did they get rid of the colour in the indicators for battery and wifi? It wasn't just pretty, it was actually functional. I do remember the days of monochrome computing systems, I grew up with green on black screens, but I thought all that was long behind us.

 

[Tall Mike 2145]

From what I'm seeing in this thread, Indigoquilter, the instructions that Fairclough and mawil1013 have lined to and otherwise discussed, along with others here, are very straight forward and about as simple as you're going to get. I guess nobody has bothered to picked up the idea that unrEVOked had and run with it. That is incredibly unfortunate, but... c'est la vie.