[Q] Removing Root to do OTA Lolipop? - Sony Xperia Z Ultra

As per the title, I read something somewhere to the effect that from here on out, OTA updates will fail on most phones if they have been rooted, and this seems to be true for the Z Ultra GPE. So, what changed when I rooted my phone, and how do I undo it so that I can do the OTA update? I have looked through the forum, but nobody seems to answer it. I am rooted with Supersu using the Towelroot method. I am hoping to not have to unlock the bootloader or anything, just want to do this the official way. (I did backup my TA partition though).

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jeraldjunkmail said:
As per the title, I read something somewhere to the effect that from here on out, OTA updates will fail on most phones if they have been rooted, and this seems to be true for the Z Ultra GPE. So, what changed when I rooted my phone, and how do I undo it so that I can do the OTA update? I have looked through the forum, but nobody seems to answer it. I am rooted with Supersu using the Towelroot method. I am hoping to not have to unlock the bootloader or anything, just want to do this the official way. (I did backup my TA partition though).
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Click to collapse
If your GPe is rooted only, the OTA should install just fine. If you made any system changes, you'll need to revert those though. I ran the OTA while I was rooted and didn't have any problems.

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Visa Declined said:
If your GPe is rooted only, the OTA should install just fine. If you made any system changes, you'll need to revert those though. I ran the OTA while I was rooted and didn't have any problems.
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Click to collapse
Not so. See:
http://bgr.com/2014/11/14/android-5-0-lollipop-updates-and-root/
As mine is rooted, no dice, the OTA fails. So, how to unroot it so that the update takes?

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jeraldjunkmail said:
Not so. See:
http://bgr.com/2014/11/14/android-5-0-lollipop-updates-and-root/
As mine is rooted, no dice, the OTA fails. So, how to unroot it so that the update takes?
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Click to collapse
well at the moment that doesn't effect the GPe, and may never. There will have to be a system image flashed to put the block device in a known state before the new way could ever be used, and if there is a system.img we can always flash that to get the OTA to work... no big deal I don't think.

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jeraldjunkmail said:
Not so. See:
http://bgr.com/2014/11/14/android-5-0-lollipop-updates-and-root/
As mine is rooted, no dice, the OTA fails. So, how to unroot it so that the update takes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, BGR is a garbage site, and I wouldn't believe anything they say, ever. Second, that article is talking about avoiding root AFTER Lollipop is installed.
Having root will not cause the OTA to fail. If your OTA is failing, it's because you made a system change on your device.
*edit
If you were using Xposed, then that is more than likely why your OTA is failing.

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What is Xposed? How would I check to see if it has affected my device? Only thing I did was Towelroot and running SuperSU. I may have done something to allow writing to the external SD card, but forget how I did that. I was intentionally trying to keep this phone basically stock so that it would easily update to Lolipop. I did a Titanium backup to the externalSD card and reset it to factory and the OTA update still fails though. I assume this was due to the fact that I rooted it. The bootloader is still unmodified, secureboot is still green - yes, lock state is locked. Only other thing I can think of is I installed an app that allowed me to set permissions by app (turn off location settings by app, etc) Sorry I can't give any more details than that...

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jeraldjunkmail said:
I may have done something to allow writing to the external SD card, but forget how I did that.
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Click to collapse
jeraldjunkmail said:
Only other thing I can think of is I installed an app that allowed me to set permissions by app (turn off location settings by app, etc) Sorry I can't give any more details than that...
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Click to collapse
If you can't figure out what system change you made to your phone, just factory reset it, and run the OTA again. There was multiple people(me included) that took the OTA successfully, our phones were rooted and SuperSU was installed.

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Visa Declined said:
If you can't figure out what system change you made to your phone, just factory reset it, and run the OTA again. There was multiple people(me included) that took the OTA successfully, our phones were rooted and SuperSU was installed.
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Click to collapse
As mentioned before, I factory reset this and wiped the cache from the stock recovery mode. Update won't take, stops shortly after it fails with "system update error". Since my last reset (been done a few times) it won't prompt me to get the OTA update, after my last reset last night. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
{Damn thing won't work... (*&^&%^$$#}

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jeraldjunkmail said:
As mentioned before, I factory reset this and wiped the cache from the stock recovery mode. Update won't take, stops shortly after it fails with "system update error". Since my last reset (been done a few times) it won't prompt me to get the OTA update, after my last reset last night. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
{Damn thing won't work... (*&^&%^$$#}
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Click to collapse
The only fail-safe way I can see is to:
root
back up TA
unlock BL
hotboot custom kernel with recovery
flash 4.4.2
OTA to 4.4.3
OTA to 4.4.4
root and restore TA if you want a working camera
OTA to 5.0

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blueether said:
The only fail-safe way I can see is to:
root
back up TA
unlock BL
hotboot custom kernel with recovery
flash 4.4.2
OTA to 4.4.3
OTA to 4.4.4
root and restore TA if you want a working camera
OTA to 5.0
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As often happens, I sometimes see a solution I don't care to implement and begin to procrastinate. So, haven't looked at this problem for a while. I may have found the solution to my problems, but want to know if anyone has experience with it before proceeding. I re-installed superSU and went through the options. Buried in the options list is a box that offers "Full unroot, Cleanup for permanent unroot". What happens when I do this? does it just remove superSU or does it restore the phone back to factory status, before it was rooted? Thanks!
PS: @ blueether the solution is fine and I am sure it would work (I was going to go ahead with it until I saw that option in superSU), but have been hesitant to unlock the bootloader, etc, due to my unfamiliarity with hacking Sony products, and only want to do it as a last, final, no other option solution. Thanks for your help!

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jeraldjunkmail said:
As often happens, I sometimes see a solution I don't care to implement and begin to procrastinate. So, haven't looked at this problem for a while. I may have found the solution to my problems, but want to know if anyone has experience with it before proceeding. I re-installed superSU and went through the options. Buried in the options list is a box that offers "Full unroot, Cleanup for permanent unroot". What happens when I do this? does it just remove superSU or does it restore the phone back to factory status, before it was rooted? Thanks!
PS: @ blueether the solution is fine and I am sure it would work (I was going to go ahead with it until I saw that option in superSU), but have been hesitant to unlock the bootloader, etc, due to my unfamiliarity with hacking Sony products, and only want to do it as a last, final, no other option solution. Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's fine and I take no offence at you not wanting to unlock the BL.
I haven't tried the full unroot option in supersu so I'm not sure what the outcome is. One of the other GPe users care to comment?

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Well, turns out that the solution to unrooting the phone is to install superSU and than look inthe settings. It will offer you an option to completely uninstall root. It did what it says, and than you can check it with a check root app from the market. It reports that the phone is not rooted. Now the question is, will it pick up the OTA update... No luck with that after a clean factory reset, so not sure what to do next.
2 questions: If I unrooted my phone, and it says it is unrooted, is this true, in the fullest extent? Does towelroot do anything more than adding some permissions ans the superuser file?
If the phone won't pick up the OTA update, why? What went wrong?
Thanks!

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jeraldjunkmail said:
Well, turns out that the solution to unrooting the phone is to install superSU and than look inthe settings. It will offer you an option to completely uninstall root. It did what it says, and than you can check it with a check root app from the market. It reports that the phone is not rooted. Now the question is, will it pick up the OTA update... No luck with that after a clean factory reset, so not sure what to do next.
2 questions: If I unrooted my phone, and it says it is unrooted, is this true, in the fullest extent? Does towelroot do anything more than adding some permissions ans the superuser file?
If the phone won't pick up the OTA update, why? What went wrong?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like the OTA is not being pushed at the moment/anymore. You could copy it to there the recovery can see it and manually install it

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blueether said:
It sounds like the OTA is not being pushed at the moment/anymore. You could copy it to there the recovery can see it and manually install it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you point me inthe right direction for instructions on this process? Thanks!

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Visa Declined said:
First of all, BGR is a garbage site, and I wouldn't believe anything they say, ever. Second, that article is talking about avoiding root AFTER Lollipop is installed.
Having root will not cause the OTA to fail. If your OTA is failing, it's because you made a system change on your device.
*edit
If you were using Xposed, then that is more than likely why your OTA is failing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your post is two years ago but i think you can help me,there is a new update for my phone and i am rooted i also have xposed installed so this mean i cannot update my sytem? Do i need to uninstall xposed? Im on stock rom and with TWRP recovery it would be a big help if you reply thanks.