Hello it's been a long time since I've posted here! Hopefully this is an appropriate question for this part of the forum. I tried to search and couldn't locate anything about this.
I'm currently using a factory unlocked S8 on TMobile. RCS doesn't work on unlocked phones since they don't have the TMobile version of software. I've saw that Android 9 has rcs updates and wondering if anyone I knows if the Unlocked s8/s9 will be able to use RCS once the Android pie update pushes out? I like having an unlocked device but that's the one thing that would make me consider a carrier locked model next time if the Unlocked ones never get rcs support. Thanks
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Android newb... will I lose anything flashing my unlocked international phone on AT&T
Hi everyone, and thanks for all the great info here. Let's assume I have my "how to root" links bookmarked and ready to go, but like a good boyscout I want to understand the gotchas/subtleties before I cliff jump. I'm also within my 15 days to exchange my s6edge AT&T for an unlocked one at Best Buy, which I plan to do today... :highfive:
(I'm technically savy, but a real newb in the world of android versions, manufacturer changes, and carrier versions and conflicts...) :crying:
1) How do I do a full ROM-level backup before beginning my adventures in rooting? Titanium Backup is no good since I need root to use it. I'd like an iPhone-style backup that I can just restore should I brick my phone.
2) After I exchange my phone I'm going to immediately airplane-mode it to prevent autoupdates (my current phone already autoupdated to unrootable OF4)... once I root how do I effectively get-latest? I'd obviously like the latest security updates, and 5.1 if I can manage it, and to maintain root.
3) AT&T doesn't have 5.1.... but if I go unlocked then can I run 5.1 on AT&T? (I've been iPhone forever -- carriers messing with you is really foreign to me). On a related note, can AT&T send some update/profile-change OTA to my phone that will conflict with updates I'm doing locally? If so any tips to avoid this?
4) An unlocked phone will perform just as well on AT&T as an AT&t phone, right? (looks like the 925F has all the AT&T bands and more, whereas the 925I is missing 1 AT&T LTE band)
Thanks for any info, help, and/or pointing me to resources where I can find the info, in advance. I'm technically savy, but a real newb when it comes to the gotcha-ridden ground of android and carriers.
Thanks again.
- Jason
So can I upgrade a 925F to 5.1 and use it on AT&T? I'm trying to work out if AT&T has _all_ edges locked down or just the official AT&T versions.
JasonS6Edge said:
So can I upgrade a 925F to 5.1 and use it on AT&T? I'm trying to work out if AT&T has _all_ edges locked down or just the official AT&T versions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At&t does not have the power to lock down all variants; only the variant with its branding. Just make sure 925F is compatible with the network of you want to use that variant.
Snowby123 said:
At&t does not have the power to lock down all variants; only the variant with its branding. Just make sure 925F is compatible with the network of you want to use that variant.
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Click to collapse
Thanks so much. Is there a reason I can't to seem to find any people running 5.1 or rooted phones on AT&T? Just that not many people are buying unlocked phones?
JasonS6Edge said:
Thanks so much. Is there a reason I can't to seem to find any people running 5.1 or rooted phones on AT&T? Just that not many people are buying unlocked phones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The at&t variant is the only variant not to receive 5.1 yet. It has nothing to do with root and everything to do with at&t's corporate policies. Most people who use a smartphone in the USA buy it through their carrier. So those users on at&t likely bought there phone from them. This is why no 5.1 for them.
Hey everyone, i've been out out the rooting/customization game for a few years now since I had a company phone, but i'm changing jobs and will be buying a galaxy S9+ soon and I plan on activating it on Verizon. I have a couple questions though.
If I buy the unlocked version (SM-G965UZKAXAA) through Samsung is there any way to activate the HD calling features, most importantly Wifi calling as service near my house is bad? I've heard of apps like shortcut master and the like being able to do it but I have no confirmation.
I've also heard about people flashing the official VZW fw through Odin to get these features back, but won't that lock the bootloader and make full root with a custom recovery impossible or can we flash everything but the bootloader?
I don't understand how a carrier can lock these features if they are specific to the phone and not the carrier??
My end goal is to have a a phone that I can still root/use custom ROMs if I want but still have WiFi calling working. Is this a pipe dream? Should I just suck it up and get the locked down VZW version? The Wifi calling trumps unlocked bootloader for me right now but I am hopeful for both.
TIA
So after doing a little more research it seems that the unlocked version we can buy from Samsung/BestBuy have the Snapdragon processors and does not have an unlocked bootloader?
Is this true?
If so I guess there is no reason for me to not get the Verizon variant. Just have to disable all the bloatware.
Tallica21 said:
Hey everyone, i've been out out the rooting/customization game for a few years now since I had a company phone, but i'm changing jobs and will be buying a galaxy S9+ soon and I plan on activating it on Verizon. I have a couple questions though.
If I buy the unlocked version (SM-G965UZKAXAA) through Samsung is there any way to activate the HD calling features, most importantly Wifi calling as service near my house is bad? I've heard of apps like shortcut master and the like being able to do it but I have no confirmation.
I've also heard about people flashing the official VZW fw through Odin to get these features back, but won't that lock the bootloader and make full root with a custom recovery impossible or can we flash everything but the bootloader?
I don't understand how a carrier can lock these features if they are specific to the phone and not the carrier??
My end goal is to have a a phone that I can still root/use custom ROMs if I want but still have WiFi calling working. Is this a pipe dream? Should I just suck it up and get the locked down VZW version? The Wifi calling trumps unlocked bootloader for me right now but I am hopeful for both.
TIA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tallica21 said:
So after doing a little more research it seems that the unlocked version we can buy from Samsung/BestBuy have the Snapdragon processors and does not have an unlocked bootloader?
Is this true?
If so I guess there is no reason for me to not get the Verizon variant. Just have to disable all the bloatware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Currently, all Snapdragon variants come with locked bootloader.
If you want development right now, you should get the Exynos version or you can wait a couple of months until someone finds a way to unlock the bootloader for Snapdragon variant.
Thanks for the response. So it looks like i'll get the verizon variant and hope someone eventually figures out how to unlock the bootloader. Although i'm not hopeful as the Note 5, S7, and S8 have yet to be unlocked
Galaxo60 said:
Currently, all Snapdragon variants come with locked bootloader.
If you want development right now, you should get the Exynos version or you can wait a couple of months until someone finds a way to unlock the bootloader for Snapdragon variant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not so, SM-G9600 and SM-G9650 have unlocked bootloaders with Snapdragon chipset.
This pertains to a Moto g5s plus phones I have.
I have 2, same make and model.
I cannot lock the bootloader, because somehow Lenovo/Moto has found a way to like hard code or something the current version you have used, which means if you do not have the latest version, you cannot lock the bootloader, it will give something like invalid I'd or update or something error message, and I have yet to find the latest firmware to flash.
I do understand there is a difference in unlocked phone, and unlocked bootloader, this concerns the bootloader.
I have had numerous phones over a period of 5-6 years, maybe even longer, clear back to the Samsung s2 days. I have also been on numerous carriers from Sprint, tmo, metropcs, simple mobile, cricket.
This is the issue I currently am up against. I have 2 Motorola g5s plus phones, bootloader unlocked. I can run cricket, metropcs, tmo fine on the phones, but with vz and Sprint I tried, the lte/data is fine, but I was not able to get calls/texts working. It came up as something like carrier provisioning something, and could never get it to work. Sprint worked on the issue as well as calling tier 2 tech support and never could get it working even after 3 hours. They didn't understand it have a solution to it at all.
In all the years and phones I have rooted, I can't recall once every having a rooted phone with a unlocked bootloader, cause a carrier not to work for calls. If it was data I could see but calls? That I don't get.
So my question is, has anyone that ever encountered this issue, and can an unlocked bootloader possibly cause this issue??
And also if there is a fix that anyone knows of, please let me know, I'd love to get it working.
No replies I going to assume that no one really knows.
Guess I'll never know why the g5s plus will not work on sprint or verizon networks.
Hey everybody,
So recently i bought this international unlocked Galaxy S9+ (SM-965F/DS Exynos processor) off Amazon and it's great, everything is fine with the one major exception being that at home my signal is pretty poor and i get extremely delayed text messages coming in and calls taking forever to dial out or failing to connect. Not a problem, i'll turn on Wi-Fi calling, right? Wrong, option isn't available, some detail: I'm in the US on T-Mobile, updated to the latest Pie OS update, i'm very tech-capable and used to do tier 2 tech support for Verizon. Long story short, I've tried everything in the book including FDR and fresh setup as well as clearing system cache etc. and it's looking like the ONLY solution to get Wi-Fi calling (and subsequently VoLTE that i didn't realize wasn't enabled until researching and checking myself) enabled is to flash the ROM with a T-Mobile OS. Unfortunately i'm coming up negative trying to find the firmware for this phone. Plenty of resources out there for the SM-965U(Snapdragon), but none for the SM-965F(Exynos) as of yet as far as i can tell (and before any ignorance jumps in here as i've seen on other threads, NO the SM-965U software will NOT work on this model phone as it runs a different processor, non-Snapdragon Exynos chipset)
So, that all being said, is anyone out there working on a fix for this, is it likely i'll ever get a fix for this, and/or is the fix already available and I've just completely missed it? Any information or help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and consideration.
bahruuk said:
Hey everybody,
So recently i bought this international unlocked Galaxy S9+ (SM-965F/DS Exynos processor) off Amazon and it's great, everything is fine with the one major exception being that at home my signal is pretty poor and i get extremely delayed text messages coming in and calls taking forever to dial out or failing to connect. Not a problem, i'll turn on Wi-Fi calling, right? Wrong, option isn't available, some detail: I'm in the US on T-Mobile, updated to the latest Pie OS update, i'm very tech-capable and used to do tier 2 tech support for Verizon. Long story short, I've tried everything in the book including FDR and fresh setup as well as clearing system cache etc. and it's looking like the ONLY solution to get Wi-Fi calling (and subsequently VoLTE that i didn't realize wasn't enabled until researching and checking myself) enabled is to flash the ROM with a T-Mobile OS. Unfortunately i'm coming up negative trying to find the firmware for this phone. Plenty of resources out there for the SM-965U(Snapdragon), but none for the SM-965F(Exynos) as of yet as far as i can tell (and before any ignorance jumps in here as i've seen on other threads, NO the SM-965U software will NOT work on this model phone as it runs a different processor, non-Snapdragon Exynos chipset)
So, that all being said, is anyone out there working on a fix for this, is it likely i'll ever get a fix for this, and/or is the fix already available and I've just completely missed it? Any information or help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm currently researching the very same issue... So far i hypothesize , with no knowledge, that if it is rooted, you can then change the csc settings and configure it for TMO, thus enabling WiFi calling. If someone can confirm, that'd be great, otherwise i'm trudging slowly to verify.
Root and use tekhd detonator.
CynicalHeight00 said:
Root and use tekhd detonator.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well i looked at this and it looks like a non-stock rom i'm sure wrought with problems that unfortunately is not helpful. My goal here is to have my phone work and continue to get standard updates with original and licensed (more or less) software and have it actually work. I'm not interested in a full OS replacement pre-loaded with a bunch of adblockers and other crap the designer thought would be useful, just want my standard features enabled and nothing else to change if at all possible. Also, if you believe my statement here is in error please explain, your one line really isn't very helpful, and nowhere on their website is there any description as to what tekhd detonator does / is supposed to do / what it will break. I'm certainly not risking bricking my phone when their own website says under all of its S9+ related material that it's for Snapdragon which the variant i have again doesn't use Snapdragon.
bahruuk said:
Well i looked at this and it looks like a non-stock rom i'm sure wrought with problems that unfortunately is not helpful. My goal here is to have my phone work and continue to get standard updates with original and licensed (more or less) software and have it actually work. I'm not interested in a full OS replacement pre-loaded with a bunch of adblockers and other crap the designer thought would be useful, just want my standard features enabled and nothing else to change if at all possible. Also, if you believe my statement here is in error please explain, your one line really isn't very helpful, and nowhere on their website is there any description as to what tekhd detonator does / is supposed to do / what it will break. I'm certainly not risking bricking my phone when their own website says under all of its S9+ related material that it's for Snapdragon which the variant i have again doesn't use Snapdragon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is going to be a hassle trust me. even with the Snapdragon models from different CSCs VoLTE and Wifi Calling do not carry over. An ATT 965U would have to be reflashed with the TMobile CSC and USERDATA files to get access to TMobile features. U are trying to do this with an Exynos model. I think you would have to root and install a custom firmware that has the TMobile USERDATA embedded.
Good luck.
can the U1 be flashed to the verizon u firmware? i thought i read someone tried this, but suspected it didn't work because he had previously used the phone with verizon with the unlocked firmware...
methcat said:
can the U1 be flashed to the verizon u firmware? i thought i read someone tried this, but suspected it didn't work because he had previously used the phone with verizon with the unlocked firmware...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can flash the G965U onto the G965U1 and vice versa. It's been well documented that this will let us go from one carrier firmware to another as well as let us have the unbranded carrier firmware. The only catch to this is the bootloader version of the firmware your wanting to flash. The firmware one wishes to flash must have a bootloader version equal too (or greater then) what is currently on the phone.
If your trying to ask about flashing the U1 onto an exynos variant then the answer is definitely no. You can't flash firmware from a different model onto a different model.
Hi,
I would like to buy a V60 and use it in Europe.
But reading about it makes me wonder if it is such a good idea to buy this phone.
Could you help me out, I'm a bit of a newbie to Roms, rooting and fixing phones so they work.
I was reading something general about importing a unlocked carrier phone and it stated that I can buy an unlocked T-mobile or other carrier and use an european sim. There it stated that it will come a time when you need the us carrier sim card to perform things and I will be unable to do those things without the correct sim card. I do not remember what those things where. Perhaps it was If I need to update it. Is it true that you have to have the carriers sim card even if it is unlocked?
Is there any other problems one might face. e.g.
This was the latest LG phone so perhaps they will not care about customer service so much:
perhaps LG will stop posting security updates:
From what I understand there are two parts of the software of a phone: the firmware and android. The firmware is LG specific and I will not be able to get updates on that. But for android which is on top of the firmware there should be a way to get updates even if LG stops posting them, or?
If not, can I switch to an other rom to have them?
Can I update to a later android version even if LG does not post one for the phone?
Can I root the phone and be rid of all the us carrier stuff, get a phone that is not associated with any carrier?
yes you can root the phone and flash EA firmware. instructions available here and works perfect for ATT unlocked phones. also you can buy a Verizon version, use it 60 days in the Verizon network, after it will work anywhere and get updates. the problem is that no new LG V60 devices left in the stores.