Leaked MC3 ROM - Please Be Careful

[meyerweb#CB]

Elsewhere in this forum you'll find links to a LEAKED, pre-release version of what appears to be the next Sprint ROM. I know there's a lot of excitement over this, and for some a desire to be ahead of the curve, but please understand this is most probably NOT a leak of the official release version. It appears we already have one member who ended up with a bricked phone trying to install this.

Skunkape said he will not be creating a thread with instruction on how to install this. Until we know more about any bugs that may be found, that's probablyl wise. The release version should be along soon enough. Unless you can afford to have a broken phone, please think long and hard whether the risk is worth the reward.

My 2 cents worth, for what it's worth.

 

[phippsy84]

Would also suggest that if you are going to install it please first check out the threads over at xda and read what they have to say.

 

[Keith Patrick]

That's really scary. I flashed the MC3 firmware from freeza over at xda, but I know that guy is legit. Had no idea people were bricking devices. Thanks for giving people a heads up.

Update: Skunk (I mean meyerweb ) I see GiantJay also recommended freeza's xda post in another thread. I am always very careful, but did I do something risky?

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[meyerweb#CB]

I am always very careful, but did I do something risky?

I guess there are two possible answers to that: Anytime you're flashing a ROM not provided by Sprint, to a rooted phone, you're doing something "risky." In most cases, the risk is minimal if you know what you're doing.

The specific risk with this ROM, though, is that it's pretty clear this is not the final ROM that Sprint will be releasing. In one of the threads over on XDA it's described as a ROM delivered by Samsung, which probably means it hasn't gone through Sprint's own testing yet. It might be perfectly fine. It might have a bunch of minor little bugs that will be annoying, but no more than that. It's also possible that it's got some horrendous bug that hasn't been discovered yet because it hasn't been tested on a wide range of devices with a wide range of 3rd party software.

Freeza is legit, as you say, but he has no more control over the content of the ROM, or the testing that's been done, than you or I do. This is pre-release code, and no one who knows just how pre-release is talking. Is it safe to flash? Probably, but make sure you have a good Nandroid backup, first. Is there a risk? Yep. How big is the risk? I wish I could tell you.

Regarding the bricked phone: it appears that person was using mobile Odin, which seems unreliable at best. Using Freeza's zip file is probably safer. And the person who's phone seemed to be bricked was eventually able to recover, thankfully. I wouldn't use mobile Odin to try to flash the TAR files at all.

 

[phippsy84]

Just flashed the zips from freeza so far so good will report any problems I find.

 

[Keith Patrick]

Thanks meyerweb. I have never used Mobile Odin and never will. My buddy swore by it until he got stuck in a bootloop, with no backups, and had no idea it could even be fixed. For him, Mobile Odin brought upon complacency.

As for the MC3 leak, I only flashed the firmware. Still, it was generally more risk than I'd like to take for my expensive piece of hardware. When the official MC3 comes out I will flash that firmware. In the meantime, if I experience any problems I will let everyone know.

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[phippsy84]

Multiview isn't bad but will take getting used to, for now SwiftKey is better than the stock keyboard for typing when using multiview for sure. Colors seem to be deeper, also seems more responsive but that could just be me seeing things that I want to see.

 

[meyerweb#CB]

I probably should have mentioned that my general approach to flashing anything is to wait a while and see what the early adopters experience. If, a couple of weeks from now no one has reported any serious problems, I might give it a try. But I'll definitely let other people be the beta testers.

 

[rando991]

Thanks, I think I'll wait then for the official to OTA, then download this one or whatever the official ends up being. I suspect this will be it though.

 

[seanskiT1]

I probably should have mentioned that my general approach to flashing anything is to wait a while and see what the early adopters experience. If, a couple of weeks from now no one has reported any serious problems, I might give it a try. But I'll definitely let other people be the beta testers.

I agree 100% with that. I read alot on XDA also and I let the devs work the kinks out before flashing.

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[phippsy84]

So far I have not experienced any problems with leak.

 

[meyerweb#CB]

As for the MC3 leak, I only flashed the firmware.

Keith, when flashing just the modem, did you first wipe cache, data and/or dalvik?

 

[Keith Patrick]

Keith, when flashing just the modem, did you first wipe cache, data and/or dalvik?

I wiped both cache and dalvik. If I had problems I would have done a clean flash to see if it resolved any issues.

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[Keith Patrick]

Meyerweb: have you flashed the firmware and ROM?

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[meyerweb#CB]

Meyerweb: have you flashed the firmware and ROM?

I did flash the modem, but haven't yet flashed the ROM. I think I'll give it a try this weekend.

I've been following the conversations on XDA, and there don't seem to be any significant issues. Some have reported significant speed increases (using Speedtest.net) with the new firmware, some no change. I noticed about a 25% improvement in download speeds at one 4G location, no real difference in other 3g or 4g locations (4g has not officially rolled out here, and performance can vary drastically from place to place).

 

[phippsy84]

Only draw back I have had is that the battery seems to drain a little faster.

 

[Keith Patrick]

I personally haven't seen any significant changes in speed or battery with the new firmware.

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[mcasas]

I flashed the new mc3 my signal seems alot better. The rom seems smoother, battery didn't change much. The only issue iv experienced is when you swipe over your contact to make a call it doesn't always work you have to hold it for a second before swiping

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[meyerweb#CB]

I flashed the ROM, modem and firmware this morning. Haven't really had a chance to get out to my usual haunts to compare performance. The only glitch I've noticed so far is that every time I reboot my phone thinks I have talkback enabled, and puts the little hand icon in the notification bar. To get rid of it, I have to enable talkback, and then turn it off again. This may be because I didn't do a factory reset as part of the flash. I just cleared the app's data, so we'll see what happens the next time I reboot.

Multi-window works. I don't see myself using it much, but it could be handy once in a while. For example, looking up someone's phone number, or doing a Google search, while writing an email.

 

[Keith Patrick]

I agree with you about multi-window. It's a nice feature to have, however it's not something that I use daily. I haven't tried any of the other features in Premium Suite, for I still haven't flashed the ROM. What do you think of them?

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