MKG

[jd914]

No it doesn't. I installed it from the link I gave you in recovery this morning and I sure didn't change the name. And if you DO change the name, it WILL fail as you learned.

I figured it out. It's updating as I type. My mistake was downloading it from my computer and transferring it to my external SD card. I downloaded the update directly from my phone and flashed it via stock recovery. Thanks for the help!!!!

 

[SamuriHL]

Awesome! Enjoy!!

 

[sang vu hoang]

Does this manual update disable us from automatic update in setting?

Posted via Android Central App

 

[SamuriHL]

Nope.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 4

 

[sang vu hoang]

Only one more question. How do I downgrade to 4.3 after updated it to 4.4 ? Thank you very much.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[espresso-man]

I've already downloaded it and am copying it to my phone. Later this morning I'll run my script against it and create a full odin image for it.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 4

SamuriHL,

I have followed your posts on XDA forums for some time. Thanks for the great work you've done.

Have you, by chance, checked if writing to the SD card is still restricted as it was in the 4.3 update?

 

[SamuriHL]

Only one more question. How do I downgrade to 4.3 after updated it to 4.4 ? Thank you very much.

Posted via Android Central App

For that you'd need my 4.3 ODIN image.

[ODIN][TAR] 4.3 I9505GUEUBMH5 Full Rooted Restore - xda-developers

(Please note to others reading, that is the PREVIOUS version not 4.4 if that's what you're looking for)

- - - Updated - - -

SamuriHL,

I have followed your posts on XDA forums for some time. Thanks for the great work you've done.

Have you, by chance, checked if writing to the SD card is still restricted as it was in the 4.3 update?

I haven't. But it was a design change so I'm 99.9% sure it will not have changed.

 

[argold]

I imagine there are some techno-nerds in Google who cry themselves to sleep each night because they are unable to weld closed the backs of our phones by software to stop the batteries from being replaced. Is Google a cult? Buying this phone from them instead of from a non-ideological supplier was a terrible mistake on my part.

 

[Wing Ng]

SamuriHL, Did you try the sd card write access on 4.4? Does the XML trick still work? I'm currently at 4.3 with sd write access and unrooted. Will the update to 4.4 cause any issues like other users are facing? Man there's so many questions I have.

 

[SamuriHL]

I'm sure it'll still work. I don't go messing with it as this change was implemented intentionally.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 4

 

[Beachbum37]

You don't unzip it. You do what I said...

o) Put it on your extSDCARD
o) Boot to recovery: How to enter Samsung Galaxy S4 Recovery Mode
o) Volume down to Install zip from sdcard, power to select
o) Volume down to the zip file that you copied to the sdcard, hit power again to select
o) Grab beer and wait

That's literally it. And the link to the OTA update I posted above is from the google servers.

I have tried side loading after the OTA failed numerous times. My phone was rooted once, via odin, i edited/added the one line in the xml file to enable SD card write access (didn't touch anything else) and unrooted and the phone worked great. I was unrooted when I initially tried on the OTA and it did not work. I tried side loading, no luck. I rooted again, deleted the line in the XML file to take away SD card write access, saved it. I used Triangle away to reset the root counter, took 2 attempts but it worked. The binary read samsung official. I unrooted again with SuperSu and tried both OTA and side loading with no luck. I downloaded the update directly from the phone to my external SD card and tried side loading again with no luck. I do not have much experience and i am trying to keep the phone as close to stock as possible (although one day i was thinking about using to experiment with customs ROMS and learn more about android hacking/customizing). I have been reading and searching forums as to learn what i can without having to bug the experts with dumb questions. Not sure what else to try. The phone is still working great and I have a NEXUS 5 that is to be delivered today or tomorrow so i will have that to play with and should i decide to sell the GS4 GPE, i would like for it to be as stock as possible. Do you think a factory reset would help?

 

[SamuriHL]

I have tried side loading after the OTA failed numerous times. My phone was rooted once, via odin, i edited/added the one line in the xml file to enable SD card write access (didn't touch anything else) and unrooted and the phone worked great. I was unrooted when I initially tried on the OTA and it did not work. I tried side loading, no luck. I rooted again, deleted the line in the XML file to take away SD card write access, saved it. I used Triangle away to reset the root counter, took 2 attempts but it worked. The binary read samsung official. I unrooted again with SuperSu and tried both OTA and side loading with no luck. I downloaded the update directly from the phone to my external SD card and tried side loading again with no luck. I do not have much experience and i am trying to keep the phone as close to stock as possible (although one day i was thinking about using to experiment with customs ROMS and learn more about android hacking/customizing). I have been reading and searching forums as to learn what i can without having to bug the experts with dumb questions. Not sure what else to try. The phone is still working great and I have a NEXUS 5 that is to be delivered today or tomorrow so i will have that to play with and should i decide to sell the GS4 GPE, i would like for it to be as stock as possible. Do you think a factory reset would help?

Um no. You did a lot of pointless things in your quest to fix a problem not caused by being rooted but rather what you did with root. I tell this to people constantly as there is a huge misconception that being rooted causes the updates to fail. It's not true. I never unroot when I take updates. Ever. However, screwing with the platform xml file certainly cause the update to fail. Simply making more changes isn't going to fix it. The checksum has to match what the update is expecting. And because you edited it, it doesn't and the update fails. You have 2 choices. Get a copy of the unedited platform xml file or use an odin image to simply flash over the top of what you have. The lesson here is when making changes to files on the system partition, always backup the original so you can restore it when taking the next update.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 4

 

[Beachbum37]

Um no. You did a lot of pointless things in your quest to fix a problem not caused by being rooted but rather what you did with root. I tell this to people constantly as there is a huge misconception that being rooted causes the updates to fail. It's not true. I never unroot when I take updates. Ever. However, screwing with the platform xml file certainly cause the update to fail. Simply making more changes isn't going to fix it. The checksum has to match what the update is expecting. And because you edited it, it doesn't and the update fails. You have 2 choices. Get a copy of the unedited platform xml file or use an odin image to simply flash over the top of what you have. The lesson here is when making changes to files on the system partition, always backup the original so you can restore it when taking the next update.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 4

Thanks for the info and lesson learned. That is kind of what I figured the issue was and I thought by deleting the that line, it might work. Will the phone update via side loading if it is rooted? As far as flashing an ODIN image, is there anything special I need to do? Will I lose everything or can I just flash with the image you have in this post? Thanks again for the info, sorry for the noob questions, I am just trying to learn a few things.

 

[SamuriHL]

Thanks for the info and lesson learned. That is kind of what I figured the issue was and I thought by deleting the that line, it might work. Will the phone update via side loading if it is rooted? As far as flashing an ODIN image, is there anything special I need to do? Will I lose everything or can I just flash with the image you have in this post? Thanks again for the info, sorry for the noob questions, I am just trying to learn a few things.

Learning is good. The odin image I created will not erase the data partition so you wouldn't lose any data. It will overwrite the platform xml changes you made, obviously. It's also a rooted image so as long as you have supersu installed you have root when flashing the odin image. Sideloading is just another method of installing the ota from recovery. So being rooted makes no difference there. It's the changes made with root to the system partition that cause people problems.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 4

 

[Beachbum37]

Learning is good. The odin image I created will not erase the data partition so you wouldn't lose any data. It will overwrite the platform xml changes you made, obviously. It's also a rooted image so as long as you have supersu installed you have root when flashing the odin image. Sideloading is just another method of installing the ota from recovery. So being rooted makes no difference there. It's the changes made with root to the system partition that cause people problems.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 4

Thanks. I understand the changes I made affecting it. So I can just go ahead and root my S4 again with Odin, install SuperSU and then flash your image from here and that will give me 4.4 with root access?

 

[SamuriHL]

Thanks. I understand the changes I made affecting it. So I can just go ahead and root my S4 again with Odin, install SuperSU and then flash your image from here and that will give me 4.4 with root access?

Follow these steps:

o) Download my ODIN full rooted restore image
o) Put your phone in download mode and connect to USB
o) Flash the ODIN image
o) Once your phone boots up, make sure the SuperSU application is installed from the playstore. This will restore root
o) You will now be on 4.4 and fully rooted and ready to make any changes you want.

Just remember to backup any files you want to change so you have them to restore for next time.

 

[Beachbum37]

Thanks, I guess my edit to my previous post didn't work. I loaded successfully via ODIN and it worked like a champ! Thanks again for the help and the hard work and coding that you do. I will probably not edit any more files but if i do i will make a copy/backup of the file. I think i know the answer to this but If i want SD card write access again , will i have to do what i did before? Edit the platform.xml file? I take it that is still an option with this build?

 

[argold]

@SamuriHL - at this point I have the SGS4GPE rooted with an altered platform.xml and I hold a spare of the original file. I believe you are saying that reverting to the original file and then allowing the 4.4 update will result in a still rooted phone? And at that point I can again swap to the altered file to re-enable app access to the external storage. Is that right? Is file platform.xml under 4.4 identical to that of 4.3 in all respects? I am not unhappy with the existing situation and having 4.4 but with unwriteable external SD storage would be very damaging to my use of the device. Thanks to you or anyone else for guidance.

 

[Beachbum37]

Ok I couldn't leave well enough alone. I have my phone updated and rooted via your Odin image and it was working great (minus SD card write access) I read over in XDA that the modified platform.xml was still working on 4.4 so I downloaded the modified file and copied it to my phone but before doing so I copied the original and made a back up. I then used ES file explorer to copy and replace the modified xml to system/etc/permissions. It did not work as stated in the XDA thread. I was getting all kinds of errors, programs force closing, nothing really working at all. The phone boots up but constant errors. I then copied the original xml file and put it back but no luck. I booted in stock recovery, wiped the cache and rebooted numerous times. I copied the original platform.xml over a couple of times and no luck, the phone boots but numerous errors and messages of programs closing. I tried flashing your 4.4 update odin image again and that loaded fine but it did not fix the problem. Is this fixable?

 

[Beachbum37]

@SamuriHL - at this point I have the SGS4GPE rooted with an altered platform.xml and I hold a spare of the original file. I believe you are saying that reverting to the original file and then allowing the 4.4 update will result in a still rooted phone? And at that point I can again swap to the altered file to re-enable app access to the external storage. Is that right? Is file platform.xml under 4.4 identical to that of 4.3 in all respects? I am not unhappy with the existing situation and having 4.4 but with unwriteable external SD storage would be very damaging to my use of the device. Thanks to you or anyone else for guidance.

I looked at the file, it is different. According to XDA it still works on 4.4 but I tried it and it does not. I have screwed up my phone. I had a copy of the xml file and placed the original back into the folder and it did not help. Just about all of my apps crash on start up. (in short) see post above.