To root or not to root? - Samsung Galaxy S9+ Questions & Answers

I have had 5-6 phones (lg, moto, s5 ,s7) before my s9+ all of which where successfully rooted and running either custom kernels or custom roms thanks to xda guides and its members. However the dilema i have with this phone as its still relativley new and it has all i really need, but i would like to extend the battery life as im not too happy with it and i know only custom rom/kernels and root could do that. I was hoping pie would improve battery and it does but thats maybe 10-15% at best from my estimates. Overall i average about 4-5 hours SOT normal usage (browsing n youtube consume most). So battery life compares almost exatly to my rooted s7 and thats a downer.
What do you guys say, How much would I gain in terms of SOT with custom kernels/Roms?
From my average 4-5 hrs.
P.S. Im aware of extending battery with tweaking settings, Im an advanced user as I have been flashing and tweaking for maybe 10 years or so now. The first and last Apple phone i jailbroke was the iphone 3gs so that was ages ago and i bought it within the same year it came out.

JasenkoP said:
I have had 5-6 phones (lg, moto, s5 ,s7) before my s9+ all of which where successfully rooted and running either custom kernels or custom roms thanks to xda guides and its members. However the dilema i have with this phone as its still relativley new and it has all i really need, but i would like to extend the battery life as im not too happy with it and i know only custom rom/kernels and root could do that. I was hoping pie would improve battery and it does but thats maybe 10-15% at best from my estimates. Overall i average about 4-5 hours SOT normal usage (browsing n youtube consume most). So battery life compares almost exatly to my rooted s7 and thats a downer.
What do you guys say, How much would I gain in terms of SOT with custom kernels/Roms?
From my average 4-5 hrs.
P.S. Im aware of extending battery with tweaking settings, Im an advanced user as I have been flashing and tweaking for maybe 10 years or so now. The first and last Apple phone i jailbroke was the iphone 3gs so that was ages ago and i bought it within the same year it came out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have never had such a frustrating experience trying to get my S9+ rooted.
1. I got the S9+ (SM-965F/DS) about 2 weeks ago. I decide I want to root it before setting it up.
2. After a day or two of research, I download Odin and TWRP, switch to download mode and try to flash it.
3. Doesn't work, because OEM unlock is disabled and RMM is prenormal.
4. I enable Developer options, but the OEM Unlock button is not there.
5. Read up online, apparently it only appears 7 days after.
6. I try to do the date/time adjusting trick. It fails.
7. Okay, whatever, I decide to wait it out. Phone is left powered on the charger for 7 days.
8. 8 Days later and the OEM unlock is still missing. I guess I messed up. Post on reddit, nobody seems to know or care.
9. I don't know what to do, decide to do a full factory reset, then pop in a sim card and login to Samsung and Google accounts just to be safe.
10. Left the phone on for ANOTHER 7 days. OEM unlock appears and for a moment I'm elated.
11. I read up on a guide so I don't screw up. Seems like it's really important to boot straight into recovery after flashing.
12. I open Odin and disable auto restart. Flashed twrp-3.2.1-1-star2lte as AP and it succeeded.
13. Inserted an SD card containing the RMM bypass zip.
14. Very carefully, I reboot straight into recovery. The TWRP logo shows and I thought I was good.
15. DISASTER. I see some error messages about how something could not be mounted or wiped. Not too sure.
16. The phone reboots on its own! I panic and immediately hold down the key combination for recovery again (bixby+power+volup)
17. It doesn't work. Samsung logo shows for a dreaded few seconds and then I get a verification failed screen.
18. I restart and boot into recovery again. TWRIP IS GONE. Stock recovery is there again.
19. Boot into download mode confirms the worst... RMM Prenormal is back.
20. I don't know what to do. I decide to try flashing Pie to see if anything changes.
21. Download the latest official firmware for Pie and flashed it with Odin. It worked but RMM(Rlc) was still Prenormal. And the Pie experiences just feels bad.
22. OEM Unlock remains unlocked, but impossible to flash TWRP when RMM is prenormal.
23. Since SamFirm only provides the latest firmware, I waited half a day to download an older firmware from sammobile to try to revert.
24. Back to download mode. But, the phone refuses to downgrade bootloader from v2 to v1.
25. So here is where I am now, two weeks later and with an unrooted S9+ that's knox tripped and bootloader efused to v2. I've read through dozens of XDA threads to no avail, just so much contradictory info and S9 support is so sparse.
I regret getting this phone. Should have just bought an S7 refurb.
I'm so frustrated. I don't know what to do. I don't expect anyone to read through this mess of text. I understand that many of you will consider root unnecessary, and for most uses you're probably right, I'm just too used to having full control of my phone to ever give it up (firewall, adblock, app data backup and restore, these are just some of the things you need root for).
I guess this post is just more of a rant than anything. I'm going to wait in this 7 day jail again, and god knows how many more times I will have to keep trying. If you have better luck, let me know

People still root their phones? It's 2019, not 2013.

*fish312
Yea as far as i know such a bootloader downrgade is impossible (correct me if im wrong). Other than that good luck trying to find the right combination, which i think you will by the sounds of things you know whats going on at least.

The only reason I want to root is dual sim and microsd capable. I'm afraid that all my photo would change date if copied to internal.

I decided to root and everything didnt go smooth, but I got there in the end. I unlocked the bootloder (oem) and i flashed twrp using the twrp thread guide and i booted back into stock. Then after my first reboot, bootloop and error msg *only ...can be flashed*. I revert back to same Pie stock. For some reason i had Oem unlock already and Rmm state checking. Lucky me i guess no 7 day wait. So then i used the root guide by dr.ketan and all went well. So far I tried Soldiers Rom and Lienage 16.0 both i have setup and tweaked for battery life and i am currently comparing. I descoverd that s9 pie kernel development wasnt very progressed as of yet.
No regrets. Root :good:

I finally managed to get my S9+ rooted as well, after 21 horrible days in RMM Jail. I'm on Pie and not really liking it, I want to downgrade back to Oreo but I'm terrified of losing TWRP/root again (and spending more time in unlock jail) . Is that a risk or am I just paranoid? I should be okay if I only flash the AP part of the firmware right?

fish312 said:
I finally managed to get my S9+ rooted as well, after 21 horrible days in RMM Jail. I'm on Pie and not really liking it, I want to downgrade back to Oreo but I'm terrified of losing TWRP/root again (and spending more time in unlock jail) . Is that a risk or am I just paranoid? I should be okay if I only flash the AP part of the firmware right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think you should have any issues now since twrp is working properly now

*fish312
Yea, each to their own, prefrence or taste are not really worth debating. My battery duration is about 60-70% better, i can get about 7-8hrs SOT on 4g (browsing, youtube, no games though) compared to about 4-5hrs on stock kernel/rom. This was the result I was hoping for. Besides the fact that you only really own the phone once you remove all the limitations set by samsung or google. Some of my rooted phones i had setup on just pure android, no google apps (including playstore and services) i would use thirdparty apk installers like pureapk, or aptoide etc..

Related

Should root this phone?

Hi guys! I ordered the oneplus x yesterday and it is coming in tommorow. I am coming from the nexus 5 ive been using it for 2 years and i flashed the heck out of that phone until the motherboard died last month lol. So the question is should i root this phone? Will i lose some functionality of some sort? Is it better with custom roms?
Any help on this will be appreciated!
Well, the only thing you will lose is the Ota features... (Over the air updates)
pedrof1991 said:
Well, the only thing you will lose is the Ota features... (Over the air updates)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay cool, i know about that. Thanks anyways
Yes you should since OOS get almost no updates and custom roms are working great !
I've been debating the same thing coming from the nexus 5 which just died. Even after replacing the battery, it just won't boot anymore. I'm actually quite enjoying this Oxygen OS. I've only been using the phone for 3 days, but it has enough customizations that I don't think I need a custom rom. It allows you to customize the battery with percentage, and has the custom reboot menu out of the box.
The only thing I'm contemplating root for is adaway, as I hate surfing the web and seeing all these ads and perhaps the custom kernel to get more battery life.
I'm getting tired of boot loops and troubleshooting the phone because of something I flashed I'm going to see how long I can stay with an unmodified phone this time around.
bringit8 said:
I've been debating the same thing coming from the nexus 5 which just died. Even after replacing the battery, it just won't boot anymore. I'm actually quite enjoying this Oxygen OS. I've only been using the phone for 3 days, but it has enough customizations that I don't think I need a custom rom. It allows you to customize the battery with percentage, and has the custom reboot menu out of the box.
The only thing I'm contemplating root for is adaway, as I hate surfing the web and seeing all these ads and perhaps the custom kernel to get more battery life.
I'm getting tired of boot loops and troubleshooting the phone because of something I flashed I'm going to see how long I can stay with an unmodified phone this time around.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was tired of the bugs too, tried to stay on the same rom for 1-2 months but there were always issues no matter what. Lets see when my phone arives tommorow! I am expecting better battery life from opx as the n5's battery life sucked xD even with elemental x.
Do you think opx is better in terms of daily usage than the 5?
Samarth_17 said:
I was tired of the bugs too, tried to stay on the same rom for 1-2 months but there were always issues no matter what. Lets see when my phone arives tommorow! I am expecting better battery life from opx as the n5's battery life sucked xD even with elemental x.
Do you think opx is better in terms of daily usage than the 5?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was a long time Cataclysm + Elemental user since I got the phone in 2013. With the custom kernel, I was able to easily go a full day without charging. I found all the problems with the N5 began when I upgraded to Marshmallow. LP never had all these issues I experienced. Currently OPX on LP, after 3 days the phone is running very smooth, no issues at all and the battery lasts a full day as well so I currently have nothing bad to say about this phone.
I just updated to 2.2.1 this morning, as the phone came with 2.1.2 from the factory but I wanted to ensure I didn't have any problems before upgrading the OS. But for me, I'm very happy with the OPX right now. I think it's more than suitable as a daily and there isn't much I miss on the N5.
bringit8 said:
I was a long time Cataclysm + Elemental user since I got the phone in 2013. With the custom kernel, I was able to easily go a full day without charging. I found all the problems with the N5 began when I upgraded to Marshmallow. LP never had all these issues I experienced. Currently OPX on LP, after 3 days the phone is running very smooth, no issues at all and the battery lasts a full day as well so I currently have nothing bad to say about this phone.
I just updated to 2.2.1 this morning, as the phone came with 2.1.2 from the factory but I wanted to ensure I didn't have any problems before upgrading the OS. But for me, I'm very happy with the OPX right now. I think it's more than suitable as a daily and there isn't much I miss on the N5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, m was buggy. I was on chroma and the phone slowed down after a month on every mm rom. Dont know why, anyways thank you for your experience
Got a almost new 1+x here for about 3 days the previous owner had used kingroot on it so it stayed after reset I did get a Ota but it kept failing to install so downloaded the full oxygen rom update.
It's been working great I ended up putting kingroot back on as its something different and don't feel like I need to flash a custom rom yet
pintek said:
Got a almost new 1+x here for about 3 days the previous owner had used kingroot on it so it stayed after reset I did get a Ota but it kept failing to install so downloaded the full oxygen rom update.
It's been working great I ended up putting kingroot back on as its something different and don't feel like I need to flash a custom rom yet
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay thanks buddy

battery drain in idle / no deep sleep / 30% of battery gone overnight

I greet you all in the name of peace my fellow comrades.
4 days ago i joined you in the xiaomi smartphone race by buying xiaomi redmi note 3 pro. Everything was fine and nice till I found out the very first day that my phone suffers from huge battery drain overnight. I did my research about this matter already but was unable to find any clear and soul-soothing answer unfortunately, so I'd like to ask you if you could help me by sharing your experience and opinions with me.
I'm not going to pretend I'm not a hardcore noob in miui as it is my first xiaomi phone and generally flashing/rooting too since the last time i was flashing anything was like 4 years ago on my galaxy s1 i9000
So to make this post as short as possible:
I'm on stock OS - exactly as it came from the store - android v.: 5.1.1 LMY47V , security patch level 1.8.2016, miui v.:MIUI Global 8.0 | Stable 8.0.2.0(LHOMIDG) , CPU: hexa-core max 1,8GHz , no mi account yet, no unlocked bootloader, no root.
observation:
I downloaded cpu spy from google store. thanks to this app i came to know:
1- the phone never goes to deep sleep but stays on 691MHz or higher all the time.
2- after turning it off and on again, it can enter deep sleep for several hours. then I browse a little on wifi, check gmail and so on or whatever.. after some time, the phone usually doesn't get to deep sleep anymore.
- in battery use, android system and android are shown as the two major culprits (high percentage). When i click on the "android" process, high "keep awake" time is only present here. not in "android system"
cause?
D) Google Services? http://en.miui.com/thread-356299-5-1.html according to another guy, "they are working on a fix" -?
E) fingerprint wakelock? http://forum.xda-developers.com/redmi-note-3/development/kernel-t3414884 fix by flashing older modem - doesn't seem like my problem,. but what do i know right?
F) something else?
fix?
A) should i try to upgrade to 8.0.6.0.LHOMIDG | stable ? not sure, because miui forums are filled by users complaining about bad battery drain in this version.
B) Do i need to unlock it and get another ROM to solve this problem? According to this guy, changing ROM didn't help him https://www.reddit.com/r/Xiaomi/comments/5af17d/battery_drain_on_xrn3_pro/ i try to avoid flashing as long as possible
C) is there even a fix?
I already went through this guide, but it didn't solve the problem http://en.miui.com/thread-339815-1-1.html
I bought a new phone and expected it to be working right out of the box, instead I've been just googling and googling for the past 4 days to no avail. I'm really confused and desperate in this matter and don't think I'd be able to continue looking and find a fix to this problem just by myself.
What should i do? I have time till next week's Wednesday to return it back to the store for full refund... or should I return it right away without any hesitation?
Thank you in advance for your reaction.
I've had this phone for some months now, and with normal daily usage and a custom rom, I can make it 4-5 days with 1 charge which is nearly impossible with MIUI ROMs; from personal experience at least. If you do not want to upgrade/change your rom, I would suggest you unlock your bootloader and root your phone. After that you could try installing "Greenify" from Play Store which really helps hibernate apps. I've been using it for over a year and it makes my battery life last at least 2-3 days more with normal everyday use. If that doesn't help either, you could try installing a custom rom which generally is "lighter" compared to MIUI roms. Hope I helped, good luck.
jimakos98 said:
I've had this phone for some months now, and with normal daily usage and a custom rom, I can make it 4-5 days with 1 charge which is nearly impossible with MIUI ROMs; from personal experience at least. If you do not want to upgrade/change your rom, I would suggest you unlock your bootloader and root your phone. After that you could try installing "Greenify" from Play Store which really helps hibernate apps. I've been using it for over a year and it makes my battery life last at least 2-3 days more with normal everyday use. If that doesn't help either, you could try installing a custom rom which generally is "lighter" compared to MIUI roms. Hope I helped, good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MIUI doesn't need Greenify because it kills apps automatically by default. I use it on all my devices except my RN3P.
My suggestion would be to go into the permission manager first and disable everything but the non-essential functions. Next go to background permissions in Additional Settings and do the same. It took me a few weeks to get things working properly and now I average about 6-7 hours of sot.
I still have some apps that keep occasionally have long keep awakes but force stopping them brings them back to normal. For example a 30 minute keep awake from bbm will show as only 5% on the stats but will account for a full 10% per hour on it's own. I've now removed it from the whitelist and allowed miui to control it. Hope this helps.

Looking for advice, recommendations and tips to better my phone

Hi all
Had my Samsung S6 Edge for over 2 years now, just finished my contract and decided to go sim only with it for cheaper price as I am still happy with the phone and it is in good condition, albeit it could do with a little spicing up plus battery life is not as good as it once was
I frequently use the AirDroid app on my phone and PC to manage files etc and I liked the idea of AirMirror where I can view and control my phone directly from my PC but for proper access it needed to be Rooted, which I did and managed to get it working however what I didnt realise was that by doing this due to jailbreaking phone and security risks, some of apps detected this and would no longer work such as Halifax online banking.
So for time being I done the cleanup root via SU and everything is back to normal now, so was hoping for a little advice.
If I wanted to have my phone rooted, spiced up abit cosmetically and better performance, without being blocked from using apps like online banking PLUS anything that will help make my battery life better......
In other words make my phone better aswell as the battery, thats kind of important as it barely lasts 12 hours from 100% charge anymore and I am not even a heavy user with it
What would you recommend for me that isnt too technically challenging, hopefully foolproof to setup and get going?
Thanks
Dstruct
Dstruct88 said:
Hi all
Had my Samsung S6 Edge for over 2 years now, just finished my contract and decided to go sim only with it for cheaper price as I am still happy with the phone and it is in good condition, albeit it could do with a little spicing up plus battery life is not as good as it once was
I frequently use the AirDroid app on my phone and PC to manage files etc and I liked the idea of AirMirror where I can view and control my phone directly from my PC but for proper access it needed to be Rooted, which I did and managed to get it working however what I didnt realise was that by doing this due to jailbreaking phone and security risks, some of apps detected this and would no longer work such as Halifax online banking.
So for time being I done the cleanup root via SU and everything is back to normal now, so was hoping for a little advice.
If I wanted to have my phone rooted, spiced up abit cosmetically and better performance, without being blocked from using apps like online banking PLUS anything that will help make my battery life better......
In other words make my phone better aswell as the battery, thats kind of important as it barely lasts 12 hours from 100% charge anymore and I am not even a heavy user with it
What would you recommend for me that isnt too technically challenging, hopefully foolproof to setup and get going?
Thanks
Dstruct
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you root by flashing twrp recovery and then by flashing magisk through twrp, you can use all your banking apps and any apps that are usually blocked by rooting. Magisk has a feature called magisk hide. So apps that check for root like Halifax and such will not detect root and you can use as normal.
Then when you have twrp installed you can experiment with custom ROMs and kernels which can both improve battery and performance. Also by debloating and removing a lot of services you don't need can help with battery.
Will look into these methods unless you have any links handy and I will have a go
Thanks
Got TWRP and Magisk on phone, seems to be in order. Done a root checker and it says I am rooted and safetynet passed, so I believe all is in good working order
The ROM I had my eyes on is the Tyrannus ROM, only reason is by a google search top ROMs for S6 edge, the Tyrannus ROM was best recommended for battery saving.. though this was only from one article.
Copying the ROM to my phones storage now before I flash it, just wondering though if you or anyone can recommend me a worthy ROM of trying out?
Tried Tyrannus, not that I didnt like it but I have ended up with Car HD. Was awkward getting SU off and getting Magisk but a couple hours later I figured it out :x
I just hope the battery time is improved using Car HD
Dstruct88 said:
Tried Tyrannus, not that I didnt like it but I have ended up with Car HD. Was awkward getting SU off and getting Magisk but a couple hours later I figured it out :x
I just hope the battery time is improved using Car HD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Carhd is a very good ROM, ran it for a long time on my s6 edge. However there's not much development any more as the dev has s8
callumbr1 said:
Carhd is a very good ROM, ran it for a long time on my s6 edge. However there's not much development any more as the dev has s8
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems alright. The 'removal of bloatware' wasnt as drastic as I had imagined tbh, so I downloaded a bloatware removal app from the store and only safely.... removed some apps, such as peel remote/language packs/standard email app .. etc that sort of stuff, nothing you would imagine is necessary for the actual software........ oh but was I wrong, it wanted to reboot after and then the lovely red text... couldnt boot properly, bad kernal or whatever it said.............. Pretty amusing at the time as I was actually out, messing around with phone while girlfriend was shopping...... couldnt wait to get back home to get it hooked back up to the PC ha.
Ermmmmmm yeah other than the above, if you or anyone can recommend any SAFE apps that automatically remove un necessary bloatware for me (So I dont have to use my brain and KNOW whats safe or not to remove etc).....
Otherwise, if CarHD mod was gooooooood....... but is now dated....... Can you recommend anything that is GOOD - Like really good, current, best?? I'd rather not try every single ROM as its quite a chore redownloading everything and setting everything back up, to decide after a few hours of use I dont like it. Rather take recommendations from people who have already tried + tested these ROMS
I disabled samsungs auto power app saving feature and installed ForceDoze as well kaspersky battery saving apps, so far battery life seems better already. I think mostly with ForceDoze

Still running on original firmware. Time to finally update?

Ever since Samsung carrier specific phones have been becoming increasingly more difficult to root, the very first thing I do on my last 3 or 4 Samsung phones is get the package disabler to prevent any updates and notifications for updates. In hopes of getting root/custom recovery or maybe even magically unlock the bootloader asap, and don't want to accidentally download a patch the could prevent me from having the option. I am still running N950USQU1AQH7. I was wondering anyones opinions on weather or not I should just cave in finally now and accept that I won't be able to ever run root/xposed in the future of this phone.
I know we have that 80% battery root option, but I really would use that for Titanium Backup and possibly Greenify. Plus the 80 percent thing would drive my OCD nuts, even if if there is a visual only fix.
So I guess I'm asking, are there any significant benefits to finally updating my phone/firmware/moving on to 8.0? Or do you think there still may be a shred of hope for me?
I'm not really having any issues with my phone except for the bloatwares/Bixby junk I have disabled already.
hows your battery life so far??? I feel like oreo has made the battery drain quicker, but at the same time I have am a heavy user. I do alot of recording and editing on my device and I factory reset after updates. I remember when it would report 40 hrs of battery life, now I get 18 hrs.
I know its only a year old, but kind of a quick drop for a phone that was released at 1k

Will be I able to get more battery life if I root?

So basically the title says all. I'm planning to use this device a little bit longer, and the only problem with it is the battery life - but I love everything else, like the display, the sound, the design. I was a wonder to root before few months but feels like at this point, at least with Samsung you losing more than you will gain with root. Like Samsung Pass, Samsung Health and Security folder. I know there is a way to recreate them but not sure is worth it all the work. Although, I tihnk is worth it to sacrifice those (but I really will miss Samsung pass), to have a better battery life.
So my question is, if I root my device, put some custom rom + some app like Greenify, will be I able to have a better battery life than now? At the moment I make around 3h of sot, which maybe is normal for device +1 year old. But I can't trust it when I'm going out. Always need to carry a power bank with me, just in case...
Leon said:
So basically the title says all. I'm planning to use this device a little bit longer, and the only problem with it is the battery life - but I love everything else, like the display, the sound, the design. I was a wonder to root before few months but feels like at this point, at least with Samsung you losing more than you will gain with root. Like Samsung Pass, Samsung Health and Security folder. I know there is a way to recreate them but not sure is worth it all the work. Although, I tihnk is worth it to sacrifice those (but I really will miss Samsung pass), to have a better battery life.
So my question is, if I root my device, put some custom rom + some app like Greenify, will be I able to have a better battery life than now? At the moment I make around 3h of sot, which maybe is normal for device +1 year old. But I can't trust it when I'm going out. Always need to carry a power bank with me, just in case...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, installing a custom ROM will likely increase your battery life so as that the kernel that the ROM youve chosen is optimized for efficiency. If the ROM you choose is overclocked beast-mode gaming champion settings enabled, then no. Some ROMs are also very stripped down eliminating seldom used apks thereby increasing batt life as well. What model do you have? if its the g965u, you aint rootin it fwiw
Thanks for the response!
Yes, I understand boosting or using some modes for performance can lead to worst battery life. My device is G965F. As for now, I'm planning to wait for the final version of Android 10. Then I guess would wait for developers to update their ROMs and chose the lite one?
Leon said:
Thanks for the response!
Yes, I understand boosting or using some modes for performance can lead to worst battery life. My device is G965F. As for now, I'm planning to wait for the final version of Android 10. Then I guess would wait for developers to update their ROMs and chose the lite one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Youre most welcome!
If you do that, you might be waiting for a while as Samsung has been recently pushing to make root more and more difficult. If youre dead set on rooting, id do it now and avoid the pitfalls of being on a bootloader version that you cant go back to your old one from and waiting for the devs to figure out the new source code etc etc.

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