Unlocked N910A won't update from 5.1.1 to 6.01 says already has latest update

[sfeinbe]

I have a used, unlocked N910A originally through At&t with a clean ESN and no SIM card. It has Android 5.1.1. I've tried OTA update to 6.01, but only got a message saying that I have the latest update. If I put in a SIM for, say, consumer cellular (as a customer), will I be able to update the phone OTA or will I be forced to manually update it with Odin?

I'm asking here in this forum because I had a great response to a previous question about a Sprint Note 4 phone I had.

 

[TwitchyPuppy]

Well, did AT&T push the Marshmallow update for the Note 4 at all?

 

[nahoku]

Take it to AT&T and have them update it for you. It's their phone and they don't release software for download that you can flash in ODIN.

 

[sfeinbe]

I think they did push marshmallow. I chatted with a rep online and he told me that without an ATT SIM card, it's not being recognized as part of their network. I'm not sure that's correct because I had a Sprint Note 4 without a SIM card and it updated OTA just fine. Of course, Sprint phones are locked into Sprint. I'm getting another Note 4 locked into ATT and will find out if it OTA updates without a SIM card.

 

[nahoku]

a rep online and he told me that without an ATT SIM card, it's not being recognized as part of their network.

I've heard this before. Can't you just visit a AT&T store and ask them to update the phone for you? Might be quicker.

 

[sfeinbe]

I think I might do that, visit an ATT store. The rep also mentioned taking it to Best Buy to update. I had no idea what he meant until I stumbled upon "Samsung Experience" offered at Best Buy. I'm including two screen shots that represent what happens when I attempt an OTA update.

 

[nahoku]

Yes, Bestbuy might be able to do it also. Didn't mention it because I don't know where you're located. Hope they can take care of it for you!

As an aside, MM brings a few changes to the interface that I personally don't like, especially in the Application Manager. They removed all the tabs (Downloaded, SD Card, Running, Turned Off) and put them all in one long list where you have to scroll to get to any particular app. To see the Running apps, you now need to go into Developer Options. Major pain for me and I don't like it at all. This was on a Verizon Note 4 so I don't know how AT&T is setup (I no longer have that Note 4, I bought it as a spare and returned it). You might read a little on what other people have to say about the MM update, compare screenshots, etc. Then again, if you don't need/want to manage apps that much, it won't make a difference for you. My Note 4 is still on Kitkat and the furthest I would ever update it to is... never!

 

[sfeinbe]

I really appreciate your comments on upgrading! I've downloaded Debloater and will use it to turn off auto OTA updates unless you know how to disable it without using Debloater. How did you disable auto updates on yours?

My phone has 5.1.1 on it. What's your opinion of it as compared to Kitkat? I haven't really looked into the opinions of people regarding the various differences between Android 4, 5, and 6.

By the way, Consumer Cellular called and said that once I'm on their network I can get OTA updates again. So now I only want to choose when and if, hence turning off auto updates. I don't like auto update anything anyway.

 

[nahoku]

Because I'm on KK, I used the Disable Knox and the OTA script to disable Knox and auto-updates. This is only for Kitkat and others on a higher OS need to use Debloater. To kill auto-update in Debloater, the one to disable is "com.policydm". Just search for "policy" in Debloater and it'll find it... then disable it.

I also use Debloater... I have about 150 apps turned off... stuff like Ant, scrapbook, among others.

Whatever you do, do NOT disable anything to do with "keychain". This handles your phone locking. If you mistakenly disable keychain in Debloater, the only way to get back in will be a factory reset... and you know what that means!

I personally prefer Kitkat over LP and the only reason is the UI, not necessarily how the phone runs. Some things I don't like...

Notification panel changed to a lighter blue/green color while keeping the same white text... lower contrast and harder for me to read
Too much white all over the place... they removed the separation lines between list items in some places
Floating icons get in the way of my contacts... I have to scroll past the icon just to read contacts that have long names
When LP first came out, the phone dialer was totally white with no separations in the numbers (WTF!)... 5.1.1 is back to at least having the separating lines, but KK actually looks better as individual numbered "buttons"

Unfortunately Verizon along with many other carriers have incremented the bootloader, and so those on LP cannot revert back to KK. When my phone auto-updated to LP 5.0, the bootloader wasn't incremented so I was able to revert to KK where my phone remains. There's nothing wrong with KK and now LP 5.1.1 seems to have gotten pretty good. I do own another Note 4 that came with MM (just got this one a few days ago)... it was supposed to have KK on it, but then came with MM... I was not happy!... but then it's humbug to return, so I just downgraded it to LP 5.1.1 in ODIN. I still need to research if I can get it all the way back to KK, but I haven't investigated this for such a long time so I don't know anymore whether or not the incremented bootloader can be nixed. I'm hoping it can.

Still, LP 5.1.1 isn't that bad since its matured, and it does have a good thing going for it and that's the ability to have an updated Samsung browser with the capability of adblocking with Adblock fast... something not available for KK. I want to try adblocking on LP to see how it is.

My opinion of MM is that it does nothing but suck! Everything is hidden away, to include ejecting USB devices. Taking the eject away from simply swiping down the notification shade and clicking to eject, to moving it where you now need to go to Settings>Storage to find the eject, is just plain asinine! Not sure what the heck they were thinking of with MM... then again, Google (or Samsung, or the carrier) are famous for making things harder to get to. Seems they do this on purpose for some unknown reason... might just be stupidity! :-\

EDIT... By the way, if you also want the System Updates listing to totally disappear from the settings menu, you can also block "com.samsung.sdm" in Debloater. In actuality, I can't remember which makes the System updates disappear from the list, and which blocks auto-update but two of them are interrelated, so just block them both.

 

[sfeinbe]

Again, I really appreciate your feedback nahoku!

 

[sfeinbe]

I just watched a video which suggested disabling syncmldm.apk. However, you suggested disabling com.policydm. Do you know anything about syncmldm.apk and how it compares to com.policydm?

 

[nahoku]

No idea what syncmldm.apk does, or how it compares to policydm. I do have it disabled as I sync nothing. For OS auto-update just disable the two I mentioned and you should be fine.

 

[sfeinbe]

I just found out that debloater will not work on Lollipop without rooting. It will only work on KitKat without rooting. Do you know anything that will disable OTA updates and/or apps generally on Lollipop without rooting?

 

[nahoku]

I just found out that debloater will not work on Lollipop without rooting.

Not sure where you heard this... I'm running Debloater on my unrooted Note 4 running LP 5.1.1 right now. If for some reason it doesn't work on your phone, you can "buy" Package Disabler Pro on Playstore. I believe it's based on debloater as it came out not long after debloater did.

 

[sfeinbe]

I think I read that debloater won't work with LP 5.1.1 on an AT&T N910A. I think it's a specific AT&T thing. I've been looking into Package Disabler Pro. Thanks for your help!

 

[nahoku]

According to the Debloater thread, it works on AT&T phones. Have you read the thread? You should have no problem initiating and using Debloater on your phone. Have you tried running it, and does it actually not work for some reason? Any errors?

 

[sfeinbe]

I just looked at that thread again and saw this:

(3/28/2015): V3.8 Added Lollipop support for rooted / non-rooted users. It will now support hiding the packages, if you are rooted it will disable them instead.

I want to disable them, not just hide.

I also just installed and started debloater, connected a Note 4 (AT&T, developer's option enabled) with 4.4.4, got a good connection according to "My Computer," but Debloater didn't recognize the device at all.

UPDATE:
Their was a step I missed (I had to "OK" a screen when it connected) and now Debloater works, at least on 4.4.4.

 

[sfeinbe]

I just used debloater on 5.1.1 and it changed the status of the file to "hidden" not "blocked." See the screenshot.

 

[sfeinbe]

I looked at two alternatives to debloater. The one you mentioned, Package Disabler Pro, and another one EZ Package Disabler pro.

Package Disabler Pro's page says this:
What's New
Following packages won't be seen in the list ;(
- com.wssyncmldm
- com.sec.android.fotaclient
- com.ws.dm
- com.samsung.sdm
- com.sec.android.soagent

and EZ Package Disabler Pro says this:
What's New
Sorry folks, due to Samsung requests and for safety reasons, we have to remove some packages relating to system update. We know you love your Samsung but here are the removed packages :
- com.wssyncmldm
- com.sec.android.fotaclient
- com.ws.dm
- com.samsung.sdm
- com.sec.android.soagent

All those are related to system update. I guess that unless I root my lollipop Note 4 or roll it back to kitkat somehow, I'm out of luck and won't be able to stop it from updating. Which is ironic since I started this thread in order to update and now am not so interested. Guess I may not be able to fight it.

 

[nahoku]

You're making this more difficult than it has to be. Just run Debloater, hide or disable the two packages I mentioned, and you'll be good. "Hiding" the package does the same effective thing as disabling them. All my hidden packages do NOT run as I too am not rooted. You might want to go into recovery and wipe/delete the cache partition in case an update has already downloaded to your phone.

I don't know where you're getting the information about all the other packages. Whether or not they have anything to do with updates, I have no idea. All I know is that both my Note 4's on Debloater... running Kitkat (since 22 months ago), and Lollipop (since 1 week ago) will NOT auto update the OS... due only to the two packages I mentioned.

If your major concern is with blocking the auto-update then just follow what I've given you.