I've looked everywhere and all over the place and even asked a few people on just about 10 forums, and nobody, not even me can find this factory stock firmware (KOT49I.LS660ZV4) I tried various so called 'custom' LS660 roms using TWRP, and they turned out to completely change the device IMEI and ESN, and made it so that PRL updates and service connections caused an authentication error and locked the SIM card, and the only course was to throw the phone in the closet (after talking to Virgin mobile about it, by saying one of my relatives got hold of the phone and did something to it that I didn't know about), and all they said was they can only do something if I reported it stolen and they would block the phone completely.
It seems that carriers do not and will NOT release their firmware because of supposed "security risks", so now I'm letting people know if you root your phone, even if any OTA updates are for security patches for Android vulnerabilities, the only conclusion is just allow your phone to be exploited, which is one of the benefits of rooting.
I made that mistake and have now thrown my LG Tribute in the closet until (maybe in another 15-20 years) an original, off the production line factory firmware is made available on the net, which, by that time, the phone would be obsolete.
Related
I just called Verizon about their rooting and ROM flashing policy. Apparently, if you root the phone, the fraud department will lock your phone, and if you flash the phone, you won't be able to use it on Verizon networks.
Does this sound right? I have the funny feeling that my question may have flown over some heads and someone may have given me a BS answer but I wanted to make sure nonetheless...
-Feuerhund
Feuerhund said:
I just called Verizon about their rooting and ROM flashing policy. Apparently, if you root the phone, the fraud department will lock your phone, and if you flash the phone, you won't be able to use it on Verizon networks.
Does this sound right? I have the funny feeling that my question may have flown over some heads and someone may have given me a BS answer but I wanted to make sure nonetheless...
-Feuerhund
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It would void your warranty, if they were to find out but there is no way they could "lock" your phone and neither does installing a (properly working) rom stop your ability to access VZW's network. There is no way they would or could know unless you were to take your phone in to the store while customized and even then, they couldn't lock your phone or stop you from using it - you would just not be able to use a warranty claim on it. Often times, on many phones, there is a way to reset / restore the phone so only the most experienced tech could tell, if at all (depends on the phone and update it's on). I mean, this myth is easily debunked by the tons of forums for VZW phones right here @ xda where 10s of 1000s of VZW users have upgraded their phone with custom roms and all that.
es0tericcha0s said:
It would void your warranty, if they were to find out but there is no way they could "lock" your phone and neither does installing a (properly working) rom stop your ability to access VZW's network. There is no way they would or could know unless you were to take your phone in to the store while customized and even then, they couldn't lock your phone or stop you from using it - you would just not be able to use a warranty claim on it. Often times, on many phones, there is a way to reset / restore the phone so only the most experienced tech could tell, if at all (depends on the phone and update it's on). I mean, this myth is easily debunked by the tons of forums for VZW phones right here @ xda where 10s of 1000s of VZW users have upgraded their phone with custom roms and all that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I asked Verizon, and here is what they said:
Verizon said:
Verizon Wireless has the right to, without notice, limit, suspend or end your service or any agreement with you for this or any other good cause including, but not limited to: if you breach the customer agreement, lie to us, allow anyone to tamper with your phone; or interfere with our operation, modify your phone from its manufacturer's specification or use the service in a way that adversely affects our network or other customers. We can also temporarily limit, suspend, or end your service for any operation or government reason.
Rooting, unlocking, and flashing a Verizon Wireless phone is in violation of the terms and conditions that were agreed upon activation of your prepaid service. You can find this information by clicking on or copying the following link into your browser: [link deleted because lol forum law]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So apparently they do reserve the right to shut you down for this. I'm rather worried that this could actually happen... but maybe I shouldn't be. But what with them having their own software on the phone, would it be so hard for them to have a little program on there that pings Verizon when a phone gets altered and gives them a killswitch? Maybe the users here are just lucky and I'll be the unlucky one... idk.
-Feuerhund
You do realize that there are dozens of VZW forums here where 10s of 1000s of users have rooted / customized their phones, right? Including many phones that VZW had the manufacturer lock the bootloader on. For HTCs, if you unlock your bootloader at their dev website, they have a record of which phones have or have not been unlocked and even with that info, have never seen a report of anyone being denied service. They have absolutely NO way to tell if you phone has been modded without looking at the phone, and even then, they will not stop your services. I have modded dozens of VZW phones for friends and customers and have never had a return or have any issues in that regard.
Found a "broken" G2 in the ads today, I might go check it out tomorrow. The seller is selling it for a very low price (somewhere around 150 USD) because the phone can't register to a network. Using my previous knowledge of other Android phones and the knowledge I acquired during my time with my own G2, I've deduced the following (ordered from least likely to most likely):
- the phone was dropped and the radio cable got detached (fairly easy fix, take the phone apart and reattach everything, the physical state of the phone can't be deduced from a single photo that's put online)
- the SIM tray is faulty because at the photo I got, a no SIM icon is visible (though that could've been taken without a SIM in the phone)
- something or someone messed up the EFS partition (I plan on checking whether the phone's bootloader root checker has been tripped, if the IMEI is okay, if it has a custom recovery, etc). The phone seems to have a stock ROM which I suspect someone flashed, or tried to factory reset the phone (which raised a suspicion described below).
But the most likely situation is that the phone was stolen. Why? Well:
- if the phone can't register to a network, its IMEI may be blacklisted
- the phone is being sold without any equipment, not even its box. The guy says it was sold to him like that, which makes me even more suspicious. I have some friends working in certain operators here, I'll snoop around once I get a hold of the phone's IMEI. If I can't get a straight story out of him, I'll try some intimidation or to knock down the price to oblivion, being that the phone might be stolen, and use it for parts, if my ways of finding its owner turn up dry.
Do you guys have any additional tips on what to check? I plan on putting my own SIM card in and trying to run some diagnostics from the hidden menus to see what's what.
robogo1982 said:
Found a "broken" G2 in the ads today, I might go check it out tomorrow. The seller is selling it for a very low price (somewhere around 150 USD) because the phone can't register to a network. Using my previous knowledge of other Android phones and the knowledge I acquired during my time with my own G2, I've deduced the following (ordered from least likely to most likely):
- the phone was dropped and the radio cable got detached (fairly easy fix, take the phone apart and reattach everything, the physical state of the phone can't be deduced from a single photo that's put online)
- the SIM tray is faulty because at the photo I got, a no SIM icon is visible (though that could've been taken without a SIM in the phone)
- something or someone messed up the EFS partition (I plan on checking whether the phone's bootloader root checker has been tripped, if the IMEI is okay, if it has a custom recovery, etc). The phone seems to have a stock ROM which I suspect someone flashed, or tried to factory reset the phone (which raised a suspicion described below).
But the most likely situation is that the phone was stolen. Why? Well:
- if the phone can't register to a network, its IMEI may be blacklisted
- the phone is being sold without any equipment, not even its box. The guy says it was sold to him like that, which makes me even more suspicious. I have some friends working in certain operators here, I'll snoop around once I get a hold of the phone's IMEI. If I can't get a straight story out of him, I'll try some intimidation or to knock down the price to oblivion, being that the phone might be stolen, and use it for parts, if my ways of finding its owner turn up dry.
Do you guys have any additional tips on what to check? I plan on putting my own SIM card in and trying to run some diagnostics from the hidden menus to see what's what.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems like you got it all covered! Best of luck.
Hello, even if you have a friend inside, It would do you well to use one of those online IMEI Blacklist checkers, if the phone is from a US carrier and it happens to be stolen/blacklisted theres a good chance that it will appear.
Anywho, so how will you do it? Will the seller lend you the phone for a couple of hours for you to check all these things? Or Will you be gambling for it?
Best of luck, the G2 is freaking awesome! I'm having a blast!
Definitely worth it. I bought a sprint lg g2 that was "bricked" in TWRP after they tried to OTA. Lmao got it for $40! Unlocked and am using now
Bought one recently (advertised as faulty antenna) but it had a messed up EFS. IMEI was null. Checked IMEI and it was fine. Restored IMEI and phone is flying fine.. Good luck on purchase.
I've got a G5 that was supposed to be unlocked, but it actually wasn't because the Orange shop had a clueless clerk.
I put in it a new nanoSIM an it asked for a code. I input the PIN of the SIM and it wasn't the right thing, then, after about 6 or 7 retries I stopped and called Vodafone, my carrier, to see if the new nanoSIM is activated or what's going on? They said it's all right if I block the SIM, they can unblock it, no problem, go on.
Except that the phone wasn't asking for the SIM PIN, but for the network unlock code.
I don't know why I didn't understand that. It's because I wasn't expecting anything of the sort. I just thought that newer phones have a different word for PIN, whatever. I had a coworker with me when doing this, we both had a brain malfunction.
The fact is I used up all the 10 retries.
Then I went to Orange service and they informed me that the baseboard is locked and cannot be reflashed, but instead it must be replaced and it costs $200.
Is that true? Perfectly working hardware has to be replaced because of a human error while inputting data in a field? No reflash possible, no reset? What kind of colossal paranoid made this design decision? Is it because of the carrier (Orange) or because of LG?
Please enlighten me, mobile gurus.
I had confirmation from another LG Service that this is indeed the case. The only option available is replacing the logic board. Hard to believe, but true. Throwing away perfectly good hardware because some moron thought it's a good idea to lock it without any way to recover, apparently. I would still like to know if it was an LG moron or an Orange moron. Who made this awful design decision? What's the mechanism involved? How does the board become locked? What kind of locking is it? Does the service actually put it in the trash, or does it take it to an LG factory and they hook it to a machine and reprogram it?
After reading some more, it seems there is a way to brute force the network unlock even after the 10 retries were used up. But it has to be with Android 6, and I upgraded to 7, because I'm restless. I'll downgrade it now.
Can someone tell me what's the name of the tool that does the brute forcing?
Downgraded to Android 6.0.1 (kdz 10i)
I downgraded the phone from Android 7 to 6, 20a to 10i (H85010i_00_OPEN_EU_OP_0923.kdz). 10c didn't work, probably too old.
I did it with Uppercut 1.0.0 and LGUP 1.14.3.
First, hard reset (with buttons, volume down and power)
Then Uppercut + LGUP, flash 10i
After that, it gave a lot of errors from applications, hard-reset again
Done
Now I need to know the name of the brute force application that can unlock it. Someone please help me, send me PM with the name.
It displays "This phone is permanently locked and can not be unlocked".
Finally, happy end.
The phone can be unlocked, even if it says "this phone is permanently locked and can not be unlocked".
Some information for whoever uses Google and finds this thread:
There is about a dozen programs that can do this, Octoplus Octopus etc. They cost about $80-$150 so it's not worth buying them to unlock just one phone. These programs run only if they detect some type of hardware dongle or smartcard. But there are people on ebay that do remote unlocking, through Teamviewer.
I had to downgrade from 10i to an even older image, 10d. The good news is that it's possible to downgrade from Android 7 to 6. I used Uppercut 1.0.0 and LGUP 1.14.3. Also after downgrade I performed a hard-reset ("refurbish") with the hardware buttons, search google for LG G5 hard-reset. As a matter of fact, I did this after every reflash, to have a clean OS.
So asadnow2k unlocked it for $15, but after unlock the IMEI was reset to 0 and had to put my IMEI back too. Also, arm yourself with the patience of a saint because asadnow2k takes ages between replies on skype. He did unlock my phone eventually, but it took two days. You might be better off taking the phone to a local repair shop. But not to the official LG repair or carrier Service.
unlocking
so what was the process of unlocking ?
tl;dr: H962 thinks it's a H961N and doesn't want to update. How to fix?
A couple of months ago my V10 bootlooped. It was a H962 purchased from a grey reseller meaning LG in Australia (where I am) and LG in Taiwan (where the phone was from) both vehemently refused to service the phone. All this was within 6 months of purchasing the phone. This wasn't too surprising, however strangely enough, the grey seller agreed to fix the phone (after constant harassment on my behalf). As the phone was dead, I figured it was worth risking money on postage so I sent it off and after several months (and after more harassment by me) I finally got it back, fixed.
A few months passed and I noticed it wasn't receiving any updates so I dived into the settings and realised that something fishy was going on - the phone reported it was now a H961N - keep in mind I purchased a H962 to begin with.
The software thinks it's H961N however all the branding on the back of the phone says H962. I'd assume they took the guts of a H961N and stuck it into my phone but LG Bridge reports it as a H962 when I try to update (although it fails).
Updating using the update centre does nothing.
Updating using LG Bridge comes up with errors.
Updating using LGUP comes up with errors.
I've tried various versions of KDZ & TOT for both models using various methods and they all spit out errors.
Attempted on both a Windows 10 machine and a macOS machine.
All the latest drivers and software downloaded from LG.
I've tried yelling at the computer, phone and neighbour's cat and nothing works.
(Oh, the reseller refuses to answer any of my emails. Legally they don't need to and they didn't even have to fix the phone to begin with.)
Android security patch level is June 2016 which has me paranoid. Is Russia now watching me eat pizza in bed in my underwear? Are they recording my every move? Does the Kremlin judge my choice of pineapple on aforementioned pizza? I'd like to update to the lastest version possible to help stop all of this... but how?
Unrelated note, thanks to this phone I am no longer a fan of LG. This is the second boot-looped phone I've had and I've had to replace the rear lens cover for getting scratched so easily, replace the speakers for blowing up after a drop from a table onto wood floor (aren't these supposed to be tough) and the phone stopped vibrating (easy fix but I can't be bothered buying the parts as they aren't locally available). I should retire the phone however it's still a tough little beast so I'll keep on going until it refuses to stay alive.
Your phone is refurbished my friend.... Any wrong update and you will get into a bootloop
Problem fixed after some more lengthy digging.
I refused to accept the unhelpful "it's refurbished so it can't be done" answer as it made no sense given the fact that it wasn't on original firmware, suggesting an upgrade was performed prior to it being returned.
For those people in the future wondering, evidently there are 3 versions of H961N (I was under the impression there were 2). The phone wasn't returning the proper version code. Updated with the proper kdz and everything is fine. It still reports it is both H962 and H961N and likely won't ever auto-update.
thatgrumguy said:
Problem fixed after some more lengthy digging.
I refused to accept the unhelpful "it's refurbished so it can't be done" answer as it made no sense given the fact that it wasn't on original firmware, suggesting an upgrade was performed prior to it being returned.
For those people in the future wondering, evidently there are 3 versions of H961N (I was under the impression there were 2). The phone wasn't returning the proper version code. Updated with the proper kdz and everything is fine. It still reports it is both H962 and H961N and likely won't ever auto-update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
please provide the link of kdz you downloaded.
jd.21 said:
please provide the link of kdz you downloaded.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://forum.xda-developers.com/lg-v10/general/kdz-download-lollipop-kdz-10c-lg-servers-t3332348
So in May of 2015 i purchased on Amazon a new Volt 2 to be used on Virgin Mobile with a yet to be established accoung. The next day my Mom surprised me by giving me her old Samsung and added me to her phone plan. The following week when The Volt 2 arrived, it got lost in the shuffle and instead of returning the phone, it got tossed in a closet... unopened... never activated... And no account opened with Virgin.
4 years later, a friend who is down on his luck just lost his cell phone. He doesnt have the money to replace it because he was laid off 2 weeks ago. I offered to put him on my plan with sprint becuase the plan i have is so cheap to add a line and figured i would give him my stashed Volt 2 since it's a CDMA phone and should work on Sprints network.... If life was only that easy.
When i went to check the IMEI number on Sprints site, it came back with a message that said something to the effect that the phone qualified but i had to bring in to a Sprint store to activate it. Just to protect myself i called Virgin and asked if the phone was locked and explained the whole situation to her. She looked up my IMEI and claimed there were no holds on the phone and shouldnt have a problem bringing it to sprint. i asked her to triple check that information which she did and assured me all would be ok with Sprint...
i go to Sprint the next day to add my line and though they didnt say it was locked, i was told i just couldnt use the device on their network. So before i esculate this issue with Sprint I decided when I got home to call virgin again and make 100% sure my device has no holds are on it anwhewre.... carrier hold, sim hold, device hold, any hold.. The tell me nothings wrong with it. In all honesty, I never told them on the phone that I never activated activated the device, as I assumed they would of seen that.
I put a request in with sprint to provision the phone to its network and the rep didn't seem to see why she couldn't they said it would take 72 hours and I'd get am email with the outcome. It's been 8 days no email.
I'm sure the problem is that I didn't have service on the phone for the required 12 months in order to get the carrier unlock restriction.... Obviously the fact that the phone hasn't been activated is what's messing up everyone's view if the device. It has no phone number, no account to tie it too and under the system under bootloader there's nothing there it blank. The phone starts up fine, i can connect to my wifi and use it just fine. But under settings there's no network associated to it and most everything is blank. I put a correct sim sprint card in and it says invalid sim. It tries authorizing and fails. It on every reboot it tries to activate and eventually fails. It will download update, but fails with an authentication error when rebooting and installing. Phones not rooted or hacked (yet). And I've looked into the unlock companies out there and told if I can't get the phone yo ask for an unlock code when putting another sim card in, then there's nothing they can do... I can't get it to do that, no matter what shortcut / hidden menu option I try. In fact even *#06# (or variation thereof) won't pull um the imei number. It's listed in the settings. But I wonder if the fact that it's not asking for an unlock code when changing SIMS is because it's not activated anywhere. But if I activate it, will a lock be put on it immediately? And why are they locking phones 4 years old... Come on.
So is this phone just junk unless I want to pay $40 a month to Virgin for a year? On a phone that's 4 years old?
For the record I posted a message on vigin communities message board not giving IMEI number and said I'd supply it through an PM if requested and I was simply replied to with the staple "phone must be activated on our network for 12 months" line.
i hate throwing away any electronics especially ones ive never used. Is that my only option if I want to use the phone anywhere else other than virgin?
Sorry for the long winded posting...i couldn't find a decent answer anywhere on Google when searching if can you unlock a phone that's never been activated.
Help.
not oe reply? ok maybe it was too long and boring tro read so ill just condense it to one line...
is there a way to unlock a prepaid phone form Virgin that i bought 4 years ago but never activated it on any network?
When i asked Virgin they claimed there was no lock on it, in fact they didnt even see the device. But when i tried activating it on Sprint, they showed a lock and said they could provision the phone and it would be available to move in 72 hours... that was 2 weeks ago and i still can't get the phone on Sprint.
So do i need to activate a 4 year old phone on Virgin and keep it for 12 months before it will get released? I tried an unlock service and they said if it doesnt ask to enter a unlock code, they cant help... i cant get it to ask for this code.... its a Volt 2
any suggestions?>